Came home to a lovely surprise

Awesome news! After a long day at work, I came home to an amazing surprise :) My happiness level right now? 11/10 :DDDDD

This is what greeted me on my desk after my hour long drive from work:

Oooooooh!!!

I'm finally an Open Water Diver!

After what seemed like an eternity, we've completed all our theory sessions, 4 pool dives, 4 open water dives in the ocean and a multiple choice test.

Everyone in our batch made it except for a German lady named Suzi, who received a provisional license. I think it means she can only dive if an instructor is present.

What's next? My trip to Mabul of course!

Open water diver theory test

Can't believe I'm burning the midnight oil for this, but our open water diver theory test is tomorrow afternoon!

If we make it, we'll be certified open water divers (fingers crossed)!

Then I can seriously start looking into booking my Sabah trip together with Z. Oh my, I'm getting goosebumps just thinking of the endless fun we'll have!

Back to studying for now, but before I go, here's a pic of our Recreational Dive Planner and nitrogen table (yes, the very one that's been keeping me up all night).

The nitrogen calculation questions are some of the toughest in the test.

I hate the nitrogen questions (and everything else that involves numbers).. my favourite are definitley the questions on hand signals!

Another thing that I've been considering is getting a dive computer, which would make such calculations much easier (plus, it looks really cool). But the only thing holding me back is the price :D Anybody feel like contributing to my dive comp fund? ;)

Happy New Year everyone!

Wishing everyone a happy new year 2016!

"We will open the book, its pages are blank. We are going to put word on them ourselves. The book is called 'Opportunity' and its first chapter is New Year's Day". - Edith Lovejoy Pierce

 May the new year bring health, happiness, joy, lucky, opportunity and everything good to all!

Merry Christmas

Merry Xmas and Seasons's Greetings everyone!

I'll just leave this here, one of my favourite Christmas songs, really get you in the festive mood :)

How I wish I was some place where it's snowing really heavily!

Loved my first open water dive

Our first open water dive was amazing!!! Now I know what it feels like to be a fish :)

Well, it was slightly scary at first, going down the dark, unfamiliar mass of water but once we reached the seabed, it felt as though everyone regained their composure and started feeling more comfortable.

We practiced several skills that we had been doing during our pool dives, including clearing our masks of water, removing and replacing our BCDs, recovering our regulators and hand signals (my favourite).

We have 3 more open water dives to complete. Thereafter, we each have to sit for a multiple choice question test and upon passing, would finally be qualified open water divers. How exciting!

Here's a pic from our first open water session (I can't remember who took the photo but the camera belongs to Susan):

Sorry for the weird cropping :)

I really need to start looking at underwater casings for my GoPro. No dive would be worth it without that little device :)

First open water dive

Seems like just yesterday that I experienced my first breath underwater during our first pool dive but guess what, we've completed all 4 of the required pool dives already and we'll be having our first open water dive in the sea this week!

I'm a little nervous but apparently Timothy, our instructor has told us that we all seem to be doing fine (except maybe for Jane).

From what I understand, your first sea dive will make or break you. You'll either love or hate it from then onwards. I'm certainly hoping its the former for me.

Taking the part-time certification hasn't been easy as I've had to juggle between studying for the test and refreshing my memory regarding all the skills I've learnt (still got to brush up on clearing my flooded mask) as well as my day job.

However, this has allowed me to be one step closer to my dream...visiting Mabul and Sipadan!

 If everything goes according to plan, I should be able to realize my dream in February 2016, when everything at work should have been settled and I should have obtained my licence.

Oh well, can't wait!!! Bring it on, sea!

Ending my post with this meme/pic, enjoy!

This made me LOL like a retard in the office

Had my first pool dive today!

FISHY!!!!!

The clownfish is certainly one of my favourite fishes ever, as I'm sure is the same for many who have watched the Disney classic, Finding Nemo.

I had my first pool dive today (hence the fish video), after what seemed like an eternity of theory classes!

Unfortunately, I'm too tired to write a full post on how it turned out. But if I were to describe the day in one word, it would be: A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

That's right, I had my first breath underwater and boy were my friends right...I don't think I'll ever forget that first breath...It felt like magic.

For now, I need some rest but I'll write more soon!