Weve decided to do some thing mad - were doing to be qualified suba divers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is something Ant has always wanted to do, myself, well thats a different story. But one of the girls we meyt is a scuba instructer so we thought " what the hell, why not push the boundries".

We enroled in a 3 day intensive Open Water PADI Course, so how hard can it be? The corse involves Pool sessions and 4 dives (the last two at down to 18m deep) aswell as module tests and a finall exam,- really didnt think id be sitting any exams while being away but oh well.

The first day started with a seven o clock pick up, theory sesion then straight in the pool. The feeeling of a full scuba kit is really strange not to mention we looked rediculous. Anyway as with anything particularly athletic Ant took to it like a fish to water (bar um bum) and i found it really hard. Even though we were only in the pool I kept having to remind my self to breath because i just kept panicing. It really is alot harder than it looks. Luckily there were only four of us in the group and i wasnt the only one to have a panic or two so the instructe took it quite slow and made sure we completed all our safety. After spending all day under water (well nearly) he sent us home with homework. No suprise it didnt really get done - we were just way too tierd.

Day two - Open Water Dives. 'I think it might rain' says the instructor and was he right, i think so!

Another early start but this morning we're in for a treat - road trip, or should i say boat trip. Hearded into the back of a pick up truck and it buckets down. Arrive soaked! Thats O.K, your all be wet soon enough anyway. Jump on a a mini ferry, go miles and still it rains. Time for first dive, still raining, waves crashing and i feel sick. Get told to jump off the boat and float for a bit, ill sool feel better - not!! Luckily under water it really doesnt matter weather its raining or not. And so we did our first dive.

As the conditions were really quite bad with an under water visibilty of only 0.5m the groups where split and so we had 1 instructer to 2 students. 8m down and even though you couldnt see very far it was still amazing. Unfortunatly we couldnt see many fishes but the corals were amazing (even if we did spend more time trying not to kick it than looking at it). The second dive was even easier but still it continued to rain and every time i got back on the ship i felt sick so we were all very glad to get back on dry land.

Unfortunatly the weather severly deteriated! On the last day of our course we were unable to comlplete the practical so instead did the exam and got sent home (well back to our bungalow).Luckily we all passed with flying colours (98%) but have been refered to finish the course at one of our many next stops. Have to say, we were both really dissapointed but its o.k, we'll have plenty of other chances to complete it, its just a shame we couldnt do it all in one go!!