The underwater world

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The dives I did in the Bay of Pigs have ignited a new interest - I'm going to carry on with the diving. I started an open water course this week, and so far we've progressed as far as standing at the bottom of a swimming pool practicing neutral buoyancy and taking our masks on and off. I discovered that my habit of being lazy about shaving makes my mask leak. I'm glad I found that out in a pool, and not when I'm trying to look at a wreck 30m under the sea...

My plans don't stop there though - my qualifying dives are likely to involve looking for shopping trolleys and abandoned cars in the bottom of Lake Travis, where the visibility is about 18 inches at the moment, so I'm looking forward to something a bit more colourful and tropical. I've been using the opportunity of an internet connection with no time constraint to do some research. Since I'm going to be in Rarotonga anyway (which worked out cheaper than booking a one-way ticket straight through to New Zealand) I've been planning some diving. I'm going to take my PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course there, which will allow me to visit some interesting sites elsewhere. Some people might be slightly concerned that this course comes with two days of free scooter hire...

If you really want to start worrying, I'm now thinking of diving in East Timor. It looks like they have some fantastic dive sites in much better condition than many in Indonesia (where the fishermen use dynamite). Going via East Timor also would solve two of my travel conundrums - how to get an Indonesian visa without pre-booked return flights (apparently they don't ask for them at the embassy in Dili), and how to get from Australia to East Nusa Tenggara without flying via Bali (there are direct flights from Darwin). So what's the hitch? This!. But that didn't stop me going to Bosnia in 1992, did it?

How could I be anything other than excited?

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