Our new, and unwelcome, alarm clock was the sound of Japanese children thrashing around in the pool just feet from our bed. Unsurprisingly neither Bob or I felt as excited about being awake as they were but we mobilised, had breakfast and skipped to scuba school with the expected nervous excitement that preceded our first open water dive. Christopher (late) offered around bottles of 'sweat' as we boarded the 'minibus-of-doom' and the driver set off with the minds...

We arrived at the dive centre excited for our day in the pool. Christopher was late (naturally) but we were soon learning our way around the various hoses, cylinders, regulators and inflatable waistcoats as well as fins, snorkels, masks, weights and belts. Embarrassingly, we had to prove our swimming competence, as well as our ability to float. Bob had this ability in spades so was strapped to several mill stones to try and prove she wasn't a witch, whilst I poss...

Fuelled by Nasi Goreng and fruit salad we walked into Sanur for our first day at Scuba School. Our instructor was a quietly diligent Balinese guy called Farish who introduced us to the third member of our group, Christopher, a stereotypically enthusiastic West Coast American school leaver on vacation who was super-awesomely keen to become PADI certified open water diver. We settled down the floor cushions of the classroom and the brain bashing began. We watched...

We woke with dry mouths from the AC and caught up with the only English Channel on the TV, BBC world, to see that we had got out of Sydney just in time as it was continuing to be ravaged by the storm. We headed to breakfast in the pretty little courtyard which was fruit salad for Bob and Nasi Goreng for me. When in Bali... We headed into town, dropping in to sign some forms at Bali Scuba School in readiness for the next day before heading to the beach. We realis...

A hideous early start was trumped by the weather which had worsened overnight. We packed up and donned full waterproofs before heading out into the storm for the dash to the station in the grey dawn. The wind drove squalls of rain at acute angles as we dashed along the flooded pavements but we arrived at the train station dry if slightly overheated. We manhandled our heavy bags through the early morning tube to town and soon arrived at the airport, checked in a...