Myself and Robin are now qualified PADI divers! We've had a very stressful 3 days of 6.30am starts, exams, open water dives and exercises, we are very glad it's over and extremely tired (I also suspect I have decompression sickness, but its probably just sleep deprivation...or hypercondria).

We've done 4 open water dives and 2 confined water dives in the 3 days. Today we got close to turtles and metre-long reef sharks, which was pretty cool. What was not so cool was having to practise losing my mask at 18 metres and swimming around with my eyes closed then putting it back on underwater and getting the water out (all without getting a nose bleed!) amongst many other traumatic exercises.

Also, one tip - never play charades with Robin, he didn't understand any of our instructors signals underwater and spent most of the time being told off for doing the wrong thing! Of course I was a star pupil, I'm great at charades (!), I also passed the 1.5hr exam in 30mins - i know its not a competition...but if it was i'd win (but you all know I'm not competitive).

Tonight we're planning on watching one of the master divers being initiated, which basically involves them having a mask and snorkel on and attaching a 'dirty pint' to the top of the snorkel so they can't breathe until they've drunk it! Then think we're going to take in some Thai boxing.

We're looking forward to moving on to Railay tomorrow which is a quieter island, then on to Cambodia - just need to sort boat to Railay, how to get back to Phuket, flights to Cambodia, accommodation in both places, visas, etc...it's going to be a busy evening!

Tina (PADI certified!)