The next day was the start of our course, we were all a bit hungover but luckily it didn't start until one so we had pretty much recovered. We met our in instructor, Shannon, an American guy who is what they call a 'Master Diver' which is another type of PADI qualification. It's the third best qualification of about 15, so basically he is bloody good at what he does! He turned out to be a top bloke and a really good teacher, could have done with a few more teachers like him back at the Gilberd. We also met the other people on the course, a lad from Upminster, an American lad, a German lad and a Swedish girl, but she could only do the classroom stuff as she had asthma. So it was 5 lads, no eye candy!

The first day is just all theory, in a classroom, didn't even get in the water, this is when we realised it's a lot more serious than just going scuba diving. We watched two videos that are about 45 minutes long, during each video you answer questions on the paper work we were given, then after each video Shannon goes through each question in great detail to make sure we all knew the answers properly. Then we would have a 10 question test on each video which you needed to get 7/10 to pass. We all did pretty easily. After being tested on the second video he took us outside for a bit where he taught us how to set up and test our equipment, for the course you have to set it up and take it down 5 times before you can go diving so we opted to do 3 on the first day and 2 on the second day. Then it was back in the classroom for another video and test. Which we all passed again.

The second day was more of an early start so Lloyd and Tim met Tasharna again and just had a couple of beers before retreating back to the bungalow for an earlyish night. We had to meet at the class room at 7.40am. We had two more videos to watch and get tested on in the morning then in the afternoon it was our first time getting all our gear on and getting in the water, only the training swimming pool mind you but we just couldn't wait to experience the feeling of breathing under water. In the pool, we started in the shallow end, this is where we had to put into practise all of the signals we had learnt from the videos. We also had a lot of skills to master as well, like filling our masks with water and emptying them again under water just by blowing through our noses. We also had to practise using our 'buddys' alternative second stage air source, just in case for some reason yours broke or you ran out of air underwater, two people can breathe off of the same tank. We then went into the deeper part of the pool where we would practise a bit of swimming and the correct way to rise to the surface. We also got taught how to rise up and down just by breathing in and out. We spent around 6 hours in the pool, and it was really fun but now we just couldn't wait to get into the deep blue sea and see some coral and fish.