We left at 7.20am for the boat, and had about an hour and a half boat ride to the first dive site. There was some great people on the boat including two America guys, Gerard and Jason, I'd spoken to the night before who were about to complete their open water!! In my dive group was one young German guy and an older French guy.

The boat ride itself was breathtaking, navigating through all those green mountainous islands I'd admired so much from the plans window. Most of them are uninhabited and so are literally green mountains in the middle of the sea - very cool.

I cannot even begin to describe how incredible that first dive was. It was by far the best I had done so far. The visibility was amazing at 15 m and what we saw was just incredible. We saw around 4 or 5 absolutely ginormous Manta Rays gliding through the ocean - one even went over my head so close I could have touched it's underbelly! They are the most beautiful sea creatures, so graceful and so unbelievably big!!! Of course we also saw a multitude of colourful exotic fish and gorgeous untouched coral reefs; the most magnificent school of blue and yellow fish swam past with hundreds of them all together. The highlight for me was definitely the mantas and my first thought upon surfacing was that I absolutely have to take Carlie diving here one day, she would love it so much. There really is a whole new world under the sea and it truly is astonishing.

After a quick sunbathe on the roof of the boat we arrived at the second dive site. I couldn't tell you which was better, that one or the first one, because they were both just so insane. We saw so so many hugeeee turtles just minding their own business, having a scratch on some coral and just chilling or swimming royally through the big blue sea. We also saw a little baby white tip shark which was completely surreal, loads of sting rays and wonderful fish, shrimp, cuttlefish and schools of colourful small fish. I'm not sure if anything makes me feel as happy inside as scuba diving does, and it was this realisation that made me decide to do my advanced course whilst here. I think I'd regret it if I didn't!

The day wasn't finished yet as a few of us disembarked the boat onto Rinca Island for a trek to see the wildlife there.....Komodo Dragons! The island was very rural and a guide took us around, passing Komodo Dragons the entire time and telling us a ton of interesting facts. The dragons grow to around 3m in length and are cold blooded cannibals, thus hunting during the early hours of the morning and resting in the day time. They eat buffalo, horses, pigs, cows, and even their own young! They mate during July and August and then bury their eggs in a nest in September. The eggs hatch after 9 months and the babies take to the trees to avoid being eating by the fully grown komodos! They stay in the trees for a few years. Komodo dragon saliva contains deadly bacteria and their teeth contain venom making just one bite often fatal. They are really really strange looking creatures, kind of like alligators but more prehistoric and they lay out flat like starfish, camouflaging easily into their jungle environment. The views
from the summit of the island were beautiful; this was just the most amazing day and I loved every second.
We even caught sunset on the boat ride back; I couldn't have asked for a better day.

I had a lovely Indonesian dinner with some of the other divers and chilled out at the dive shop before turning in early, prepared for my advanced course to start bright and early in the morning!