WEll, I am sure you will all be pleased to know we passed our PADI open water diver course yesterday! We have had to turn the old grey matter on for the last 4 days as we have been back to the classroom to study for our final exam, not to mention going to the bottom of the sea with little more than a ton of equipment weighing us down! We tried out in the pool first of all, the first thing I thought was "I am going to drown" then I realised I could breathe and the show began. The next day, we headed off on a dive boat about 30 minutes from the coast, did our "buddy checks" (basically put my life in Stephens hands, it could have been the perfect murder!) and plunged into the blue! You wouldn't believe how hard it is to actually "get down", you have to deflate your bouyancy aid, exhale, then equalize your ears, not let your mask flood, and they had to give me extra weights as I was a real floater! Can't think why.... Anyway, once down we had to do a series of skills, take your mask off and then clear it, share your air with your buddy, and loads of other things. We saw fish and coral and loads of sea cucumbers, it was amazing. However, Stephen and his Unfeasibly Large Lungs used his air up faster than anyone else so we had to go up earlier than everyone else! We had a fun group to learn with, just 5 of us, and a few drinks last night to celebrate our success! There is a huge dive community here, lots of very young people and instructors are treated like Gods, its all very "cool". The weather is fab at the moment, we are going back to Ko Phangan tomorrow to hit another beach. I pratically feel like a mermaid!