It's been so long.....

..... since I last blogged. Life has taken over and I have better things to do than to write countless blogs.... Well, to be honest, a blog becomes boring when it's just words and no pics. Getting pics uploaded here is the most cumbersome thing ever. I have to upload each photo at a time and a great diving trip could take all night to blog. Much easier uploading pics to facebook.

Anyways, since last August, I have been on two dive trips and got my Advanced Open Water certificate. It all kicked off with our MBS Sept dive trip to Aur, again. That was my third time to Aur in 3 months. I'm not sure whether it's the variety of fish available that never fails to amaze me, or the fact that I'm still a relatively new diver that any place is just a good. I'd probably dive in my bathtub if I had one! LOL!

Here's me doing my safety stop and looking perma-shocked... and the one below of me getting a well-deserved snooze after our last dive. I've received quite a few pics of me sleeping. Obviously it's of great fascination to many. (Hope I wasn't snoring, teeheehee)

Then I went diving in Phuket and Phi Phi with the boys during the Hari Raya public holiday. Organising the trip was relatively easy as there were a quite a few dive centres to choose from online. The best bit about the holiday, other than the diving, was our hotel on Patong Beach which fronted the beach. At SGD$35 (GBP15) per night, it was a steal.

I was determined to dive everyday so I had 4 days of brilliant dives. I saw three leopard sharks and a graceful eagle ray flying along whilst I was doing my safety stop. Here's a pic of Sharkey.

It's a shame I didn't have an underwater camera with me as there were loads of interesting stuff in Phuket that I had not seen before. My favourite has to be the yellow boxfish. They are just so cute, far cuter than Nemo. And I saw a teeny baby one about an inch square just swimming along the crevice on Koh Doc Mai.

I did my Advanced Open Water course during the overnight trip to Phi Phi and I was stressing a bit with 5 chapters to read through whilst I was in Phuket. It turned out to be pretty easy and I had a great one to one during the whole course. During the final module underwater, my instructor's find strap broke so she had to buddy me up with someone else and she ended her dive. I think that warranted an automatic pass.

I think the funniest moment has to be when I got a bit confused over whether I should be doing the square navigation under water as I was told at the surface that we would do that the next day. When we got to the bottom, my instructor drew a square and an X on the sand and then pointed to me and drew the square again, I was wondering whether I should do it, did it half-confused and ended up doing a circle! Oh well, nevermind, I did it alright the next day.

I'm glad I booked my trip to Phuket again over the New Year's public holiday. I believe it's now nearly fully booked. I will be on the big Black Manta for this trip and we'll be sailing over to the Similan Islands for 5 days of solid diving. There would be nothing better than getting up early on my birthday, jumping into the water and be greeted by a whale shark or a graceful manta ray.

In the meantime, I'm off to Miri this weekend for little Emma's second birthday and 2-day dive off the coast of Miri. I've now bought myself an underwater camera housing with an arm and a leg. Although with my dad's connections, it only cost me an arm. Hopefully Miri being relatively quiet, it will have some pretty untouched reefs and I should have my very own underwater pictures to show. Feel a bit like a cheat posting up loads of underwater pics on facebook when I've not taken any of them!