Doing her Divemaster

It’s been an exhausting 12 hour day with 4 scuba dives, but I am still full of endorphins. I am living in Tulamben which is a small scuba diving oriented down in the volcanic countryside of Bali. I have been living at a dive shop doing my Rescue Diver certification and now I am starting my Divemaster. Today I moved into a new place – it’s wonderful. I went from having a toilet with no toilet seat, a shower with no faucet, water that never worked and sleeping on smelly sheets in a dorm room for 6 people to my new place. Aside from the contrast, it’s quite stunning. I have a large patio, a closet, a giant bed the bathroom is above Indonesian standards – all for $3 more a day than the dorm. It really feels like home. There is an Indonesian family that lives there and they are smiling and friendly, just like the restaurant down the street – where I write my emails.

The dive shop I am doing my Divemaster at is lovely too. It is kind of like a small family there, I quite like everyone. I will be here for a month, then back to Canada and back to work.

When I am done my Divemaster I will be certified to take people on their “Discover Scuba” dives, so their first uncertified dive into the ocean and to guide groups through dive sites. I don’t know if I will actually ever do this, but it is a nice escape route out of a regular life and the skills that I am learning are quite important.

I like this quaint little life in a town where the road only road takes 5 minutes to walk down – this is good because I am relocating somewhere small in October and I hope that I like it enough to stay a while :-)

I am in Paradise

I haven’t wrote in a while, mostly because it is for my own entertainment and I have been having more fun with my quote website: www.theinspiredegotist.com

Where the hell have I been? I all the way to Alaska and now I am back in Asia waiting for my final flight connection to Denpasar Indonesia to meet Kaitlin who I haven’t seen in 8 months! It was a tiring 2 flights to Bangkok and I had a 10 hour layover and I decided to get a hotel at the last minute which was the best idea I think I have ever had.

Vancouver to Hong Kong I drank with a Chinese guy who taught me something that 4.5 months in Bangkok didn’t teach me – how to bargain. I got my room at half the price they quoted! He was funny, we had 3 seats to ourselves and an open bar. I had 2 airplane bottles of wine and took half a sleeping pill then I woke up a few minutes later and he was putting a third bottle of wine in my hand. Who was I to say no? I did pick Air Canada because of their open bar policy.

Hong Kong to Bangkok was an absolute party – except I was exhausted and sleeping. There was a field hockey team of school teachers from England on the plane and I swear each one of them was like Lucy from I Love Lucy (like the scene on Rat Race). They were mesmerizing and if they hadn’t looked so hilarious with their gin and tonics I would have been very annoyed.

Now for Bangkok to Denpasar and my expectations are so high it is nerve wrecking.

-----

I am in Bali now with little time on the internet. I am currently on the Gili islands which is equivalent to my paradise. I had the most fantastic day. We woke up and rode bikes around the island then I signed up for scuba diving on a whim – saw sharks, turtles, barracuda, a monster sized lobster and corals I had never seen before. It was a really deep dive and it was spectacular. Then with some people I met here we took our bikes and rented scuba equipment. It was low tide and after half a kilometer walking backwards in flippers we snorkelled in a gorgeous area where I spotted 2 more sea turtles (I am never the one to spot anything). Finally, we had a fish bbq dinner on the beach with some perfect live music. There is a course on free diving (diving quite deep without a scuba tank) that I am interested in, but it is quite expensive so we will see. On that note, I have been very healthy! Early nights, early mornings and minimal drinking!