Backpack is back!

Fantastic news! Apparently the person who took my backpack thought I had left the bar for the night and had left my things by mistake. He turned it in at another dive shop and because everyone knows everyone's business around here the instructors there knew there was a girl at BANS looking for a black backpack. He brought it around today so I have all my stuff back! YAY! Bloody brilliant.
Yesterday's afternoon boat was cancelled so none of us got to dive. Instead, we all hopped on motorbikes, bought some cases of beer (when you buy a case a 40oz bottle works out to be 23 baht or .52 USD) and headed up to James' bungalow where we sat on the porch and drank from 3pm to around 8. Then we went to Sao's for the best burgers on the island and popped by BANS for the first round of hard liquor. BANS was pretty quiet to we took off to Lotus, which is a bar on the beach with little mats on the sand and candles lit in little sand pits. There are guys there that twirl fire on ropes (they do this in Hawaii too) and let you try if you want a go. Luke and James gave it a shot and both of them ended up burning their arms (not badly). Well, one of the girls in our little gang knew the bartender (always good)so we got three rounds of free Kamamazee shots (god they are good). Sufficed to say it was not a sober night. I think tonight will be a little lower key though because tomorrow we head to the full moon party on Koh Phanngan.
The full moon parties happen (surprise surprise) every full moon and it consists of all the beach bars flinging open their doors and blasting their music all night long. We'll take the 7pm boat over, drink all night, and take the 7am boat back after which we will all doubtlessly fall fast asleep for the rest of the day. Everyone but me, that is, because I'll have to take a 1pm boat to Chumpon to get to Bangkok in time for the flight home on the 19th. I am honestly really sad to be leaving. I've hit that point now where I'm completely integrated into the life here - I'm one of the BANS DMs and even other dive shops recognise me (it's not a big island, 5km by 2km). Moving to NYC it took almost a year to hit a stride like this and here - a month. The only thing that pulls me back is the knowledge that after a year or so this life wouldn't be enough anymore. In some ways it's all fun with no substance and I know that eventually that would get boring for me - but damn, it's really fun for a while. And a while could certainly be longer than 6 weeks.
I also want to say thank you to everyone who has emailed me comments and things - it's great to hear from you and you make my day :) People are starting to send me links to photos so when I get home I'll post them and put up a link. There are some funny ones (like me with a card stuck to my head)!