I left at 7 am for the dive boat, bursting with excitement to start my advanced diving course. It was going to be one-on-one with me and the instructor, a lovely guy called Toby who is only 19 and has done over 1000 dives!! I find Toby very impressive having left school at 16 and finding his way into scuba diving soon after, progressing to dive master level within one summer. Diving is such a community, and people are so passionate about it making it seem like so much more than a hobby.

Our first dive was absolutely beautiful. At the start I gained my skills in Perfect Buoyancy performing some tasks on the sea floor, such as floating in a Buddha position and moving up and down using only breathing technique. I learned to swim right against the sand without moving a grain - a much better way to swim when diving to avoid damaging any of the marine environment. After that it was time to enjoy the dive and we really saw some incredible things! I saw a turtle, sharks, a super creepy crocodile scorpion fish, a pregnant cuttlefish and tons and tons of others, I couldn't possibly list them all. The coral in itself was gorgeous and this was my favourite dive so far; such a beautiful dive site and very easy to navigate with unbeatable viability at 20m.

The second dive was at Batu Balong which is basically a rock in the middle of the national park, swarmed with seagulls, which descends down with a beautiful reef the entire way round. I was a little nervous for this one because I had been warned the currents were really strong, but also excited because I would be gaining my fish identification skills here - due to there being such a great and diverse amount of marine life at this site. There were SO MANY FISH it felt like being in one absolutely huge fish tank; I felt like a fish myself! I saw three reef sharks, lots of incredible green turtles, an octopus, eels, trumpet fish, groupers, lion fish - to name a few, and so many more. I cannot believe how lucky I am go be diving in one of the best places in the world for it. I love it!

The third and final dive of the day was my Deep Dive, where I would reach 30 m. Before the dive Toby had me write some words backwards, and then down at 30 metres he tested me again to show me how much slower your reactions become, due to their being a higher concentration of nitrogen in your system. After that we enjoyed the rest of the dive which again was just incredible coral reefs and all the surrounding fish. I felt so comfortable and confident diving and really took in everything I was looking at. We spent the dive looking for a frogfish and unfortunately didn't find it, but it didn't matter because there was so much else to see. The underwater world is like nothing else I have ever experienced before.

I very much needed another lazy evening as diving is so tiring! I had a Bintang and some great Indonesian food, and mainly just chilled chatting to people and looking forward for next day.