Day 229! The days are quickly ticking down on my dive master training! 3 days from today, I’ll be all done! Wild… What’s really great is my manager, Iris, confirmed today that she wants to use me as a DM after I’m done. Whenever they need an extra dive master and I can also bring my own fun divers in as well! We also have a trip to Sail Rock coming up on the 24th so I’ll be able to go for free and make money that way as well! So cool!

It’s time for another morning of leading fun divers!

Today I had two open water fun divers, so we could only go down to 18 meters maximum. It’s been a while since this was the case, so I made sure to keep a close eye on our depth to ensure we didn’t surpass it.

Our first dive though was at White Rock, which is a very difficult site to go deeper than 18m on.

But before we set out, my manager, Iris, asked me to help her. We needed to grab a couple gas tanks from Taco Shack that we forgot. The boat was low on fuel and it needed them to make it to and from our morning dives. So I hopped into the taxi truck with her and we raced back to the hostel. On the way back I sat in the back holding the canisters and I was accompanied by the hostel dog Taco! But then it was back to diving.

My fun divers were Eilidh and Tom, they both had done their open waters years before, but were finally doing fun dives! So they were both very new to diving still. Even though this might’ve meant they were inexperienced, it did mean they were still very excited to be diving. Sometimes more experienced fun divers don’t have the same excitement as they once had.

We dropped into White Rock and had a lovely dive around the dive site. I’m a big fan of this dive site since there’s so much diversity in the marine life. Today, unfortunately, the blue spotted stingrays were hiding very well and none were in the spots I know where they like to camp out.

We did see two moray eels and two puffer fish though! So I was glad I could point out a couple “cooler” fish.

We had an almost hour long dive at White Rock, which was really impressive for how new of divers they are. Sometimes people are just born with good air consumption.

Our second dive was to Green Rock! This was my second time at this dive site and I was super excited, because last time I saw a turtle.

Now this time, there was no turtle, but I did know the dive site fairly well after the first time. I was able to navigate it with ease and with how good the visibility was, it was a great dive!

We saw six banded angel fish, loads of trigger fish, and I FINALLY spotted a blue spotted stingray. I also explored a new part of the dive site which was the wall of the island. This part was also super pretty.

We had another long dive and then wrapped up our morning dives.

For these dives, I used Gracie’s gear (BC and Regulator) and they worked amazing! I’m so stoked that she’s letting me borrow it while she’s gone. It’s saving me the hassle of even thinking about buying and selling gear after I’m done with my training.

I then went back to the hostel to help clean gear, hopped home to shower, and then went back to the hostel for lunch!

I sat and had a drink with my friends Kit and Kiki. But then it was time for a much needed nap.

When I woke up I didn’t really want to spend time in the heat. So I sat in bed and watched some TV. And of course, played some guitar too! I also started the process of looking into places to stay in Australia… a bit stressful, but it’ll all come together eventually.

Dinner time rolled around and Kit, Sina, Chris, Chelsea, and I met up. We went to a new restaurant (for me at least) called Long Thai.

Since this restaurant had a pad of paper on the table for our order, it was time for another round of guess that person. It was a really hard one but ended up being a lot of fun.

The food was okay, I probably won’t go back to this restaurant again. Mainly because it’s by the pier and I can get the same thing, but better, elsewhere.

We then went back to Taco Shack for some cheap drinks and were planning on heading to bamboo bar after. Tonight was Franco’s last night playing in his Latin band and I wanted to support him. But a torrential downpour came rolling through and thwarted those plans.

Instead, I played some intense foosball against Sina and then Kit… losing to them both. And then I lost in pool to Chris and Kit as well. A tough night in the bar game department.

The rain subsided and it was time to go home and go to bed as I’m leading more fun divers in the morning!

– Elie