Now for the first of our weekly entries, Gili Trawangan is proving to be brilliant!

Gili Trawangan is one of three islands off the coast of Lombok, Our island is just 3 km long and 2 km wide, which means that it only took us a couple of days to be fully orientated with the island. One thing we have noticed is that there are absolutely no dogs on the island, and as a result the island is over run by cats.

Gili Trawangan is our home for the next 6 weeks as we said in our last blog, the reason being is that both of us have decided to do our Divemaster Course which is the first step towards professional diving.

After extensive research we settled on Trawangan Dive to do our course with and thankfully it was a fabulous choice - the dive operation is well organised and full of abs fab people.

Three days into our stay we found that wild nights were to be had - We went to Tir na Nôg which is an Irish pub (apparently the smallest island in the world with an Irish pub) to celebrate some people completing their Instructor examination and passing. All we did was neck down shots, dance all night and teach lots of sign language. (when we leave, everyone will be fluent in BSL!). Its like being an 18 year old gap year student all over again.....

There's a shot thats all the craze on the island - Vodka Joss (I think that's what it's called!) where you down some sherbet vitamin powder followed by a shot of Vodka. Helen abs hates Vodka but was able to drink this - was quite yummy to start off with but the more you have, the worse it tastes! (healthy I guess....we are definitely getting our fair share of vitamins...)

On the island there are no motorized vehicles which means we no longer have to dodge scooters etc as is the norm in SE Asia but there are a lot of cidomo's (a small horsedrawn carriage). Obviously, Helen's always assessing the horses health, the way their feet have been done, their weight and the way they hold their bit etc etc (the list is endless....)

During the day, we just take advantage of the unlimited diving on offer...our clear favourite dive site is Shark Point as every single time we have been we have spotted reef sharks (black tips, white tips and grey reefs!) which is a pleasure as anywhere else in the world they are in decline - sad face!

The weather, however has not been very kind to us as its done nothing but rain very heavily, thunder and lightning (but it's supposed to get better.........watch this space)

We couldn't stand our room at the dive centre as its suitable for backpackers (I know we're backpackers, but just not for 6 weeks...) it was tiny and you have to use the outside bathroom if you need a pee at 3am...no thanks..especially if it's raining. So we did a thorough search all over the island for the best value room and found our place which is absolutely gorgeous, modern furnishings, brand new, with TV/DVD, cold fresh water shower (would you believe, most of the showers here on Gili are salt water....) and breakfast whenever we want it!!! We also have a huge porch where we can lounge on the 'bed'....a great find we think!

We have started our DM theory, knowledge reviews and confined water skills...so we have had a very good start to the course. At the end of March we have 7 more DM trainees joining us which will be fab! The hard stuff begins.....