Finally!

Got my OWD in 2006 and finally after 5 years.. *drumroll please* I'm an Advanced Open Water Diver!

Secured a really good deal during the last MIDE fair for my AOW course. However the catch was that I needed to do it by 31 Mar 2011, and since I was still recovering from pneumonia last year, I was only able to do it this year and decided the last weekend of Mar - which is also the tail end of the monsoon season.

Kin aka Mr Sotong said that visibility would sometimes be as clear as 10-20m and that weather will be spectacular.. On the contrary, visibility was an average of 1-2m on our dives and weather was bad!

But God was good as he gave us clear weather on the 2nd day there where we had to complete our last 3 dives.. That night however it rained so so heavily that it woke all of us up..

My buddy was battling a fever, nose block, ear block during the entire course.. I'm so proud that she managed to pull through and finish it..

Can you believe that we went to Perhentian Kecil but didn't head to Long Beach or eat our ikan bakar at Amelia's! That was just unacceptable la.. For those who've been there with us before, you know what we mean.. The last day on the island was supposed to be a chillax day at Long Beach but our 4pm boat got cancelled due to the bad storm, so we had to take the 12pm boat out.. Decided then to rent a motel room on mainland to shower, rest and eat before our 830pm bus..

We didn't see much on our dives and didn't really have a good instructor - Nothing beats Toby or Simon, so I hear.. Honestly I'm quite tired of Perhentian Kecil..

Time to explore other islands.. starting with Tioman end of April - but doubt I'd do any diving on that trip.. need to save up $ plus the crowd going are mostly non-divers.. So we'd probably just snorkel and chill by the beach.. Nevertheless, still a relaxing holiday to look forward to..