PADI Certified

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There is another pure blue sky as I wake up at 7:30am and head down for breakfast. A dive boat is leaving so our group will go on the noon boat. Time to just relax and swim in the sun. James is still sick so again he will miss out. The morning was spent on the dock laying in the sun and swimming with some friends. At 11 we start getting our gear and loading the dive boat. There are only 8 of us on this boat and as we leave another dive master tells Phil (our dive master) that there are whale sharks at a point. So scratch our earlier plans, we are going looking for them. Now we are
Super excited because they were spotted on the morning dive and we are heading out. We do our first dive near shore to finish our training which passes in under ten minutes. For the rest of the dive we went throuh the reefs and tunnels which was cool. Then after an hour dive at 18m we are out of air and head back to the boat. Time for a little rest as we boat towards the sharks location. We jump on the roof of the boat to keep an eye out for circling birds and jumping tuna which is a sign for sharks in the area. After looking for half an hour we give up our search. The sharks are not in the area so we will try again for the sharks tomorrow. With a little disapointment we head to a new reef for our second dive. After we have all switched to fresh tanks we jump in for a fun dive. The reef in this new location is super cool; we follow along the wall weaving in and out of tunnels and seeing a huge lobster are neon blue and green fish. A highlight is a foot long fish with orange spines sticking out. We had a really good dive seeing schools of fish and many multicoloured corals. When we got back to the boat after another hour under water we are all stoked but tired. It's time to head back to the dock so we all jump onto the roof and head for a chill ride back to shore. Phil comes up and congradulates us on passing the coarse we are all certified open water divers and can go on our own anywhere in the world. Wahoo! When we get back we all run up for showers and to grab a bite fast because the party boat is leaving soon. James looks like he is feeling better and will join the next course that starts. We all jump on the party boat minus Matt and we are not sure where he is. It does a few tours of the bay and we buy Phil our instructor some beers for being an awesome teacher. Some flying fish are jumping and the sun had a good set to top off the day. When the party boat finally docks we jump out to start the real celebration. Just as we start we find out our dive tomorrow is at 8am and we have to be there to prep our gear at 7:15am. I decide not to drink muchore because I want to be in good shape to see the sharks and dive. The others head out for a few hours but are also goin to take it easy. Our dive instructor's assistant named Simon on the other hand isn't so lucky. He planned to do what I did but in a few drinking games we had, he lost hard. The horses he bet on lost and the winners all gave him drinks. It will be a rough wake up for him for sure. All in all it was an amazing day of diving. We are PADI certified and it is time to go on some fun dives!

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