Day 16: Third day of diving by Matt

Woke up to our last dive day, and the sunniest. Our routine now established, we readied our washing pile for later, got some packets of biscuits/pastries for breakfast and stepped out to the grap pickup point just as the taxi pulled up.

We quickly located our man at the harbour, and shortly boarded the boat for the crossing with a bunch of retirement age Germans. I watched with amusement as the man opposite me tried to put his life jacket on like a life buoy ring round his waist, their guide coming to his rescue, whilst his wife filmed him in hysterics.

We stepped into the jetty for our last diving day with a pang of sadness, greeting the 3 island dogs like old friends and began our prep for the day. We were to be accompanied by a young Swiss couple, who'd recently completed their open water at Dive Down Below.

We filled our online log books with our past 2 days diving whilst we waited, by now used to the fact that whilst it was likely we'd go out soon it was never that clear when. But very shortly we assembled in front of the board for our first briefing. Jam explained his largely illegible scribblings and reef map and we were ready to set off, none the wiser but excited never the less.

The 'captain', whose real name we never found out, sped us to our first dive site called Sulaman Reef. It was very exciting to all enter the water together for our dive, reminding me of the first time we all got on a ski lift. It was Eashan's and Arushi's last dive for their Open Water certificate so we couldn't quite all pleasure dive. As we descended, Eashan had a bit of difficult equalising in one ear so we separated anyway. On this dive we saw a stone fish and another lion fish and slowly continued to build our confidence.

After a good 40 mins underwater, though I still seemed to be the one that sucked air the fastest, we clambered aboard and headed back for a quick tea break. The sun was out and tropical location shone even more brightly than the last 2 days. Jam explained in our briefing that we were next heading to Married Reef, so called because of the proximity to another reef. This time we descended and stayed together, and because it was a relatively shallow dive of no more than 12m I brought the GoPro, apparently ok up to 10m without a case.

We quickly discovered that a family dive wasn't well coordinated, with the kids swimming in different directions, both horizontally and vertically, meaning it didn't make for a particularly relaxing experience. It was however, lots of fun and amazing to be sharing such a privileged event. Sadly, the button on the GoPro stopped working after about 5m so when we came across a turtle at 10m I spent more time trying to get the dam camera to work than actually look at it.

Dive 2 completed and a fantastic shared family underwater adventure, we headed back for lunch discussing all the fish we saw. A familiar spread of rice, noodles, vegetables and wedges awaited us, which we happily devoured. For an activity in which the less you move the better, it's amazing how hungry you get.

Our last dive was to the encouragingly named 'Turtle House'. Another relatively shallow one, especially as the tide was going out. We descended together and, after some advice from the instructors on body position and buoyancy control, our children seemed slightly more composed.

We drifted along, Chris searching under rocks for creatures, he found a blue spotted ray, and Jam seemed mainly concerned with projecting bubbles with his hand. As we ascended the reef wall, we came across a hawksbill sea turtle, which Eashan, being near the front, managed to follow for a while, until it effortlessly glided off. A critically endangered species, they're 1m long and the only known biofluorescent reptile due to the properties of some of the coral they eat.

A fabulous dive to finish on, we carried out equipment ashore, dunking it in the fresh water tank, and finished our log books and Open Water course admin. We said goodbye to Gaya Island, though we'd seen very little of the actual island, the biggest in the Tunku Abdul Rahman Park. We sped back with the caption, Chris and just us, ending our diving adventure with the feeling of a very personal touch we'd had throughout.

We said our goodbyes and walked back, crossing the highway at a junction this time rather than playing frogger with the traffic. Foregoing the pool, we dropped another load of washing (free washing the highlight of the accommodation) and headed over to the Imago shopping centre and all it's eateries we'd discovered last night.

Opting for DubuYo serving 'urban Korean food', we chose a selection of bimbaps, soups and fried chicken. Millen and I picked a deal for 2, which was a bit hit and miss. We headed back, via an ice cream shop, picked up our washing and collapsed into bed, tired, happy and fed.Read more