What a fantastic day. In the water at 7.30 for the first of 4 dives, and the sun came out to say hello too.

This first dive was the penultimate speciality dive for advanced certification, the deep dive. We went down to around 26m, did a few checks and then had a slow swim looking for fish and stuff. The fish seemed more curious down here, coming much closer, which meant you could see them much better. A real eye-balling on both sides. With a relaxing swim round for the ascent it was out of the water for breakfast.

The last speciality dive was a free choice and there was a split decision. Me and my buddy chose under water naturalist whilst the Dutch couple chose photography. This turned out to be really cool as our instructor led us to some cool spots, we found the interesting fish/corals that we ID’d and then we had photographs of some of the stuff we needed to look up. We saw another turtle and a metre-long giant clam but one of the best finds was a wobbegong shark tucked away in the coral.

Last dive for the certificate completed and the four of us are now certified Advanced Open Water divers. Cool.

Next dive was a fun dive as we have now completed the AOW course and we got a little lost. Hard to believe as navigation was part of the certificate! But it’s ok, we saw loads of cool stuff and made it back to the boat with air to spare. Then we found out the last dive of the day, the night dive, was in the same place! But we didn’t get lost and managed our safety stop without a reference point with reef sharks gliding past our fins. Big tick for buoyancy control.

I have to say this as been a fab couple of days and there are still 3 dives to come. The first one is at 6.30am, sunrise tomorrow morning. The best way to wake up.