We did it! We've officially got our PADI open water licence. Scuba scuba scuuuuubbbbbbaaaaaaa.

After the all clear from the doctor on Wednesday, we were back diving yesterday. We were glad to find out it was still just the two of us and our dive instructor. We had another confinement dive to complete in the shallows where we demonstrated skills such as hovering, fin pivot and taking off our BCD. Steph found taking off her weight belt quite tricky but got there in the end! We sped through the tasks and swam underwater back to the boat.

Time for a 12m dive at the diving site Pottery. Once we were in the depths, we had to show we could do compass navigation. As buddies, we stuck together and our instructor set our compass. We followed the direction for 10 kicks - quite scary as the visibility wasn't that good and there's nothing around you. After 10 kicks we reset our compass to the opposite direction and returned to our instructor - no mistakes made.

We also learnt how to use a dive computer to tell us the depth we were at, length of dive and ascent rate.

Today we had 2 fun dives of about 35 minutes each. The first was at Hin Pee Wee where we went to our maximum depth, 18.9m. The visibility was only about 5m so we stuck close together and enjoyed seeing the colourful fish. Among others, we saw Angelfish, Triggerfish, and a blue spotted stingray. As the current was strong we ascended and descended with a rope. But on the way back up, the boat moved creating a massive current.

Our second dive was at Twins where the visibility was much better, about 10m. It was our most enjoyable dive yet. We descended freely and swam around the pinnacle. The fish are unbelievable and seem so inquisitive. We were lucky to see a school of Barracuda! We swam into the centre of the school and they circled around us; it was amazing. It was also special to see some Giant Groupers and shrimp.

We have another dive scheduled for tomorrow morning at Chumphon Pinnacle and it should be a good'en! One of the best on Koh Tao, so a great one to finish our time on this island with. In the afternoon we're getting the ferry to Koh Phangan.

Steph and Max x