I have been in Bali about 4 days but it only took me about 5 minutes to realise that it is beautiful. I have been staying in Padang Bai, a small, quiet town in the south east of the island. Being as it is the low season there are not that many people around. I went there to complete my PADI rescue diver course and expected to be in a class with a few other people but it turned out that i had my own private class!

Having worked from 6.30am until I left for the airport on the say that I arrived, I hit the sack pretty early on my first night. The next day I spent about 6 hours studying all the material I had to learn for my diving qualification. Having already spent about 10 hours in Australia completing a first aid course it turned out to be quite the academic committment. I rounded off my day with a massage before I hit the sack early again as the next day I had all my practical skills to do and the written exams.

My day pretty much consisted of dragging my dragging my dive master Boode out of the swimming pool under the careful supervision of my instructor Giovanni. Giovanni is of the old school when it comes to diving, as such there was nowhere for me to hide! He made sure I knew exactly what I was doing and there were no cut corners. He was a fantastic instructor, in fact the whole setup, Absolute Scuba, is really professional and friendly. I certainly struck gold with this place.

After I finished my practical work and completed my exams (which I passed!) I was sitting enjoying a quiet beer when I got chatting to a lovely couple from Fresno, California, Britt (check out her blog and her online vintage wedding dress store) and Jeff.


That was pretty much the end of it. The rest of the night is pretty much a blur. It involved card tricks, card games, piña coladas, whiskey and cokes, and a shed load of Bintang! Turns out that Britt and Jeff are very good at twisting arms and I have an easily twistable arm! Even Giovanni got involved.

Needless to say that I didn’t get any of the book work done I need to do for my Nitrox diving course. Which meant getting up at 6.30 to get it finished with a stinking headache!

I got the work finished, thank god. Passed the course and then went my first 2 proper dives.

I also had the chance to do my first night dive. This was pretty daunting but I had a great time and saw some really cool stuff like a mimic octopus which changes colour depending on what ever is behind it and this beautiful Spanish dancer fish.

Needless to say that after I got back from the night dive more festivities ensued with Jeff, Britt and this time Boode, who works at the dive resort I was staying at. We all decamped to the Babylon Bar, which Boode’s family owns and again the rest is history! A great way to start my time in Bali!