The course takes 3 days- the first being just theory. Once we'd survived the 5 hours of watching a videos about diving, we got to go out on the boat.
Our instructor, Herbert (from Germany) showed us the basic skills- taking your regulator out of your mouth, clearing your mask from water etc, and we went for a 11 meter dive.
We didn't see much on this one, as the visibility wasn't very good - the weather wasn't great which can cause bad visibility.
The next two dives that day were focused around skills and practicing controlling our buoyancy. When you're diving, you need to be able to stay under the water, without touching the very bottom so that you don't damage the coral and other aquatic life.
It takes a while to get used to this. You have to inflate a little air into your buoyancy jacket to go up and release it to do down further.
There's a lot to think about, with as well as controlling your buoyancy, you have to be aware of how much air you have, and make sure your ears are equalised so that the pressure doesn't become painful.
We set out the next day to another dive spot. We were only meant to go down to 18ms but we went as far as 19.5m down. The visibility was a lot better and we got to see some beautiful coral. I enjoyed this dive a lot more than the previous day as I wasn't thinking as much about what I had to do!
The next dive was at manta point. This was absolutely incredible. We would swim around under the water, in search for manta rays, and when we found one, we would all hold onto a rope which Herbert had attached and watch the mantas.
Some of them were 4 meters wide and they would swim right near our faces. The way they move is memorising- so gracefully moving their gigantic wings.
We saw 4 manta rays swimming together at one point. Seeing mantas are quite rare so it was great to get the opportunity to see them!
Our final dive was my favourite. Herbert said that in 2 years this was still his favourite dive site- Batu Bolong. We dived down and instantly the visibility was incredible- we could see for 18m! It was like we had discovered an underwater paradise.
There were many different multi-coloured coral, and hundreds of different kinds of fish including: giant baracoda, lion fish, green moray and clown fish (Nemo!) I saw some turtles and 4 white tip reef sharks. I thought I would panic seeing a shark but they were very small and didn't look like they could eat me!
After 2 incredible days diving, 5 dives, and some quizzes and an exam, we all passed our open water course so our now certified to dive on our own!
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