We woke early to finish packing and scuttled up the road to the dive centre like 2 heavily laden hermit crabs, with all our worldly possessions on our backs. The water was due to be a ‘chilly’ 22 degrees at the dive site in Padang Bai, on Bali’s Eastern coast, so we had an entertaining 15 minutes of sweat and stress trying on full length 5mm wetsuits (in which Bob get very entertainingly stuck) before boarding the Bus-of-Doom for our third round of ‘high-speed-smash-a-scooter’. Mercifully the drive was half the length of yesterdays but that was long enough for Mad Max to cause enough chaos on the roads for us to be thankful that we only had the bus ride home to survive.

We arrived at the beautiful bay unscathed and loaded a colourful little outrigger fishing boat with our dive gear and provisions. All set we pushed off and were soon cutting through the light swell, hugging the coast and heading east with the sun on our backs. The steep volcanic hills tumbled straight into the sea and we picked up a mooring buoy which was our signal to gear up. It was quite a balancing act getting into the thicker frog suits, flippers and then strap on over twenty kilos of breathing apparatus balancing in a narrow hulled boat with 3 other divers, one of which was like an over-excitable puppy and kept on whooping at passing boat drivers. Eventually we were in the water and after a few practice drills we were off exploring but this time I had the GoPro with me. The bottom was sandy and we dodged between coral bastions spotting sting rays, lobsters, moray eels, lion fish before eventually having to flatten ourselves to the bottom as a colossal submarine cruised majestically past.

We returned to the surface and the boat cruised around to the ‘Blue Lagoon’ where we were allowed to back roll into the water like real frogmen! We swam to the edge of a shelf which disappeared into the indigo depths and descended down to our limit of 18 metres, feeling everything compress as the coral became significantly less inhabited. Surfacing for the last time was emotional but we were soon speeding back to shore where we ate lunch and loaded back into the van who’s driver had had a personality transplant whilst we had been at sea and the return leg was so sedate that by the time we arrived back at the dive centre we were late for our taxi which was waiting to take us to Ubud. Farish swiftly took us through the final steps of the qualification and helped us fill in our log books before shaking us all by the hand and waving good bye as the hotel car pulled away.

The hours drive to Ubud was serene and we made the most of the calm driving experience to soak up our surroundings as the tiers of the paddy fields got steeper and the road got more winding. After passing countless wood carvers, stone masons and artists shop fronts we turned onto a smaller road, past a temple and then arrived in paradise. A collection of well maintained buildings were perched on a mountainside, surrounding a stunning infinity pool and with an open sided restaurant which offered us an amazing green fruit cocktail as we gawped at our home for the next few days.

Our room looked out over the valley and had a huge fourposter bed, shrouded in mosquito nets and covered in petals. The sunken bath overlooking the view was also full of flowers and we spent a vey content hour settling in as I tried to work out how to eat each exotic item in the fruit bowl with only moderate success.

Supper was superb and we sat overlooking the dark valley where fireflies bobbed past and a tree frog observed us from the lamp above our heads. We returned to the crisp white sheets and cocooned ourselves in the mosquito hangings very content indeed.