I’ve been doing my Divemaster course with Two Fish Divers for the past three weeks. In Amed, which is on Bali mainland. I started off with my Rescue course and specialties in Nitrox, sidemount and wreck diving. These courses were all  part of the plan in advance, but what I had not been expecting was Tech diving. In Amed the Tech Instructors talked me into doing the TDI courses; Advanced Nitrox and Decompression procedures. Not much persuasion was needed on their behalf as I had always been interested in this specialized type of diving. Everyone visiting Bali for diving wants to see the liberty wreck. But Amed has much more to offer, especially for macro fans. There are a few muck diving spots where the guides found a few mimic octopus and small frogfish, while I was here. And during a Tech dive, I ran into my first shark (Black- Tipped Reef Shark).

After all this I switched to Nusa Lembongan – a little island off the coast of Bali. The diving here is truly fantastic. While the water is usually quite a bit colder than in Bali I experienced a constant 28°C. I ran into some turtles and many Reef Manta Rays, close enough to touch, but I didn’t. One time I was even lucky enough to spot two dolphins who floated by, investigating us. There are a few places on this Island where you can do drift dives over an hour and never see a patch of sand without coral on it. Lembongan has become very well known among divers for the Mola-Mola, but unfortunately they are a rare sight in the summer.

My trip continues to the Marine Park of Bunaken famous for impressive wall dives. I will finish my divemaster course in Lembeh, home to many creatures that are simply out of this world. Here I will do my last specialty course in search and rescue.