PADI and the "Big Island"!!!

---

Hello! Since I last wrote me and Yasmin have become certified divers! Allowing us to go diving anywhere in the world which is pretty cool!

So on Saturday, the first day of the course we slept in and had a rushed breakfast before meeting our instructor at 9 at the dive centre next door to us. Having read the best part of 120 pages about diving the previous night we were pretty desperate to get out in the sea, however we were disapointed to find another few hours of theory awaited us. We watched 2 videos and learnt how to put together our kit before some lunch at our hotel. After lunch and a briefing (telling us numerous tasks that we'd need to cover in order to pass our course) we were finally able to put our kit on and get out on the boat for our first confined dive! Usually people taking their PADI license at home or in Europe do their 4 confined dives in a swimming pool but we did ours in the beautfiul aqua water of the Perhentian islands! Going under for the first time is a very strange sensation as you breath totally normally and after just a minute our instructor was puttin Yasmin and I to test as we had to do tasks such as flooding and emptying our masks and staying buoyant underwater for a minute! After around 20 minutes we'd finished the taks for the day and went for a "fun dive" which basically means you get to go around a reef and look at all the beautfiul animals whilst also getting used to diving. The reef was beautiful and we saw box fish, clown fish (nemo) and many others! This lasted around 40 minutes before getting back on the boat and back to the hotel. In the evening we went to the hotel next door and had a chicken curry which although very tasty, probably wasn't worth the hour and a half wait! However we had more theory to read for the next day so wasn't wasted time! We went to bed shattered from the day diving!

Day 2 of the course started with another video and knowledge review of the theory we'd read about in our book before an hour long confined dive (the second of four) which involved many more skills for us to do underwater which me and Yas were finiding relatively easy! After lunch we went on another fun dive which again was awesome around a different reef this time where we saw loads of fish as well as a blue spotted ribbon tailed sting ray (i love the names!)! Once back we had a de-brief where Nadine (our instructor) told us what fish we'd seen and what depth we'd been to etc for us to write in our new PADI logbook and then watched the final video before finishing for the day. Nadine had told us that as we were flying through the theory and practical aspects of Scuba that we'd be finished by Monday and that we'd also be doing our final exam on Monday too! So in the evening we sat with our books and red through the last chapter of our book and did a bit of revision (and i thought i'd finished with studying!). In the evening we went to another restaurant on the beach which served awesome burger and chips (very cultural)!

Monday morning after a final review of our theory we went for our 3rd fun dive which was as ever, great. After lunch we did our test which consisted of 50 multiple choice questions which we both passed comfortably allowing us to really enjoy our final fun dive which was the best yet! As well as seeing all the usual fish such as parrot fish, nemo's, boxfish, angel fish, barracuda etc we also saw rays and another turtle! Swimming with a turtle again was unbelievable, they're so so beautiful! After coming back to the dive centre we filled in some admin type forms for our PADI license and also enrolled on a wreck dive (something i NEVER thought i'd want to do!) for the next day. Once again we were given some theory to read for the dive the next day and due to the weather being horrific in the evening we just had a pizza at our hotel and finished some reading before an early night!

Up early again yesterday morning we had some breakfast and picked up our washing which we had left with the hotel 3 days earlier...however we were 2 items short when we got back to our room, suspiciously the two most expensive items, a pair of Abercrombie shorts and vest top! The least charsmatic woman I have ever met worked behind reception and offered little but a grunt at our complaints so begrudgingly we went for our briefing for our wreck dive. Once on the boat we soon forgot about the "Laundrygate" back at the hotel and instead were feeling slightly nervous about our first adventure dive! Once under the water it was exactly like being in the opening credits of Titanic with the ship moving into view as we went down to 18 meters. The ship had sunk in 2000 on its way to Singapore for repairs and was a sugar cargo ship, hence its wreck name, the "sugar ship wreck". It was amazing swimming next to the huge 40 foot mast with huge schools of barracuda swimming alongside us. The scariest part was when our guide directed us inside the cargo hold of the ship which initially seemed pitch black but your eyes adjusted as you got inside. Was incredible the whole experience and the visibility was generally really good which allowed us to see bamboo shark and loads of fish! Once back at the dive centre we went for lunch at a restaurant in the bay next to ours and on the way back we were greeted by a troop of large black monkeys with white faces and really long tails, was so amazing! Yasmin got some great pictures as they were quite happy to sit posing for photos whilst munching on leaves! We spent the rest of the afternoon lazing on the beautiful beach before showering and going for dinner at the cove next door again. Dinner was amazing, we had red snapper and king prawns off the bbq...dad you'd be sooo jealous....these prawns were huge! Never seen anything like it and so so tasty! We got a water taxi back to the hotel and hopelessly tried to get the staff at our hotel to do something, anything to get Yasmins clothes back but they had essentially done nothing but did kindly agreed to wipe the 4 pound laundry bill off our final balance!

Today we've spent the morning on the beach before a rough boat journey across to the mainland. We now have around 3 hours to kill before a night bus to Kuala Lumpur! Hope everyones well at home...

Speak soon!

Jamie and Yasmin xxxx

---