Reading, snorkeling and studying!

So today we enjoyed time on the roof terrace reading our books before having to check out. It was sooo nice and such a shame that we had to move away from our perfect view but ah well. We checked in and then headed straight for lunch. Ayam Bakso time. Its an Indonesian soup with chicken meet balls, egg, noodles doused in an amazing mango mollasces and a hint of chilli it's super tasty and super simple!

Then we headed to the beach for a swim and relaxation. Ah this is the life ☺️ We sat and chatted with a guy called Matt who was quite an experienced diver and calmed all our worries and recommended some more dive centres. We went to visit them, went for another swim, watched sunset, went for dinner and then just as everyone else in the world was probably doing we headed to the pub to watch the match. It was a bit of a boring game but it was nice to meet up with Matt again and chat about his diving adventures! Unfortunately we weren't able to book ours for the day after but hey just gives us another day to chill and swim.

The next morning we had breakfast, read our books (I'm reading the Enders Game at the moment, I really like it!), FINALLY booked our diving course, headed for lunch and then to a Japanese Ship Wreck for a snorkel. Now... I'm not the most confident swimmer, I can swim but I still get scared in the deep water. We got to the snorkeling site and the waves were pretty strong and to be honest I was pretty scared, which never helps. We hired snorkels and they gave me flippers. I've never used flippers and bloody hell they aren't supposed to be used for walking. I nearly fell flat on my face umpteen times! Eventually I got to the water (I literally had 1 meter to walk...) and I got terrified all of a sudden. I couldn't stand up and th waves were too strong and just kept crashing me down 😔 I got out and one of the locals came to check on me. He reassured me that once I got past this first bit it was really calm and I would be OK. He offered my a life jacket but I was determined! Snorkel on, flippers on and I just went for it and I'm so glad I did! He was 100% correct, I was barely a meter in and the sea was so much calmer and you could just float along. We swam to the ship wreck and it was super cool, there were fish everywhere, really lovely coral and it was just amazing to be floating around. We must have been out there for about an hour! It was really fun, so glad I went in again. When we got out Will very calmly said "Umm, so do you know where the scooter key is?", to which I obviously said no as I don't drive it. He then said very slowly as if to say don't panic but... "I think I left it in my swimming shorts. But now I've been swimming... And they aren't there." For goodness sake. I quickly empty the bag, run back to the scooter to check and honestly... it probably was in his shorts. We tried ringing the homestay but they didn't pick up and then panicked. Luckily a lot of locals were with us and they said owners always have a spare so we don't need to worry and even more so lucky a guy came out the sea who was also driving back to Amed (about 30 mins away and actually drove Will back to the snorkeling area to pick me up). So he very kindly drove Will to the homestay while I stayed put. I got chatting to the locals which was fun but then I was left with a bit of a crazy local called Julie who about 20 mins prior was talking to me but she acted like she had never met me so we repeated the same conversation and then she showed me endless pictures of herself in selfie style with a love heart frame. didn't . It was super weird lol. Luckily Will came to the rescue and our homestay provided us with the spare key. We headed for a quick dinner before attempting to begin our studies for tomorrow. We were hoping to get home for around 4pm to give us plenty of reading time but got home at 8pm 😭 it was a long 3 hours of reading. What are we studying I hear you say?! Well as we are doing our PADI we have a test to take as well as the 5 dives and there was quite a lot to read. I definitely fell asleep flat faced on my phone wups...Read more