Well you'll all be delighted to hear that we have now both survived our PADI open water scuba certification! It took four days, and then we loved it so much that we decided to take the advanced course. With just one day off to rerlax, it was then another two days of work. In the normal course we learned the basics of how to survive underwater. Unfortunately we didn't encounter any sharks, but there was LOADS of other very cool stuff. Ther advanced course then taught us some, as you may imagine, advanced diving techniques. We can dive deeper (30m as opposed to 18), and can now swim through hoops, both upside down AND on our front (designed to help buoyancy!), all except Liz that is, who ended up getting stuck in the hoop and spinning round in circles... We also learned about underwater navigation, using such high tech equipment as patterns in the sand and current directions. It also allows us to do night dives-we did one last night, and it was amazing! So different than during the day, a whole new set of things emerge. We saw a giant sea turtle, stingrays and pufferfish, not to mention the metre long barraccudas! They were very cool to see; they used our torches to hunt! We would find a barracuda (or more it would find you and swim about 2 inches past your head!) and then find some poor little fish to shine our torches on-next thing WHAM!! They're not to good though, they always missed! Another course we did was the underwater photography, so we have a CD of all our photos to show off when we return. Some are good, but a large number are, shall we say, blurred. Most exciting of all, we saw a family of Nemos living in their anemone. (Andy told me how he didn't think that they were real nemos as they were not as bright as the nemo in the film. I had to explain to him that it was actaully the nemo in the film that was a little bright and that I suspected the real one in the sea was a more accurate representation of a Clownfish.) Though we only planned to stay a couple days, this is a place that a lot of people end up staying a long time. 17 monts ago our diving instructor came for a few days. But sadly tomorrow we'll be heading off to pastures new in the form of Koh Samui. After that, we plan to herad into Malaysia for around a week to get some serious sun. Though it's warm here, it gets battered a bit by the monsoon, so can be cloudy, windy and rainy at times. Hasn't really mattered though since we've spend the majority of the last week under water! Liz: Gillie, how did Emma get on in dancing exams? I got a B!!! Better be off; just had the most filling meal and are both absolutely stuffed and a bit uncomfortable. And we're needing to get away from the TV set in the cafe which is showing THE worst TV soap that I think has ever been created. It's the Thai version of Eastenders in that everyone watches it, but it's gotta be 100 times worse than River City! Since we're in Thailand, we'll sign off today in Thai. ฌนนกิ ฟสสม สนะห นด สนอำ น ฟสส ดพนท ห นะ ป