Finally after three weeks and half apart we got our vacation as we planned in Sulawest. We would go to Manado and Bunaken for diving certification and then trekking around Tana Toraja for two and a half weeks. Its gonna be awesomeee yeaaaa. We got to Manado around 9 pm and felt really excited to finally start our vacation. We stayed at The 4fish Guesthouse in the small village of Tongkaina in order to get out PADI diving certification with Thalassa Dive Centre. Awsomeeee.
Little bit weird to wake up early morning in vacation, but it’s totally different feeling :d, we went to Thalassa dive centre, nice people, friendly as there slogan states... come as guest, go home as friend. Our instructor is Indonesian friendly guy, his name is Fransman ( finally we found out his name when he signed our certificate on the last day...oopss....hahaha). In the morning we had to choose our gears for diving, read about how to dive, safety bla bla bla, we end up read around 73 pages n took the quiz after. Oh well, not that boring actually hehehe.
Finally, in the afternoon we got to go to the swimming pool for the first test, swim 200 meters n then tread water in 3 meters pool for 10 minutes. Z struggled with the treading water trying to hole himself up by pulling D under the water... in fact D is always better than me in the swimming pool..:(. and then we did some of dive techniques for one hour in the pool, It was really fun.We finished around 4 pm n we were exhausted, and we still had to study about diving for quiz next day....semangaaattttttttt...:d
Day 2: Training
We really want nasi kuning today for breakfast, the guest house is really nice and they cook a great dinner every night (if you ask nicely the chef will even make some Dabu Dabu for you... spicy Manado sambal, but unfortunately there breakfast are just toast and jelly. We heard a girl in the distance yelling nasi kuning in manado accent..that means singing..., Nasi kuniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing...:d, We woke up but felt lazy to catch her up....hehe. Anyway today we have another pool session n we then went diving 2 times. The last technique in the pool Z failed, even the instructor said u will die if u failed this technique in the sea. Z just said Oh My Gosh..:p. So we were rushing to catch the boat for the first dive. This is our first time in the real sea.. yikes. We have a little doubt and both are thinking, " Are you sure we are already ready for this?", but yea we have to dive now.hahaha.silly. D has a problem with equalizing, Z has a problem of being scared of meeting shark in the sea.hahaha. Oh well, we will do some other technique in the sea such as flip back into the sea from the boat, go down dive into the sea etc. We dive for 45 minutes, to be honest we didn't really enjoy our first dive, we still struggled to improve our weaknesses. D even bit off the mouth piece because she was having such a difficult time equalising. But our second dive is much better. We saw Nemo, starfish, crabs, beautiful coral etc. It was really awesome down there, before we couldn't imagine how awesome it was, but now we can understand it is like another world... as if we travelled to another planet... almost alien like.
Day 3 training
Still felt exhausted... I think that neither of us realised how difficult this would be. Today we have our last pool session and then we get to take the rest of the day off running around Manado. Yayyy... or so we thought.. hahaha. Half way to Manado on the motor bike it started downpouring... then we got to Manado hungry and wet and found out that everything was closed.... because... it was Sunday of course. Any normal person should know that everything is closed on a Sunday... oopss. Also driving around Manado feels like you have entered a one way labryinth. They are all one way streets so if you finally see a place that is selling food you realise after you have already passed it and then cannot go back again to check it out... oh what a headache. So we went to the bookstore and then watched the sunset by the beach until the restaurants finally opened up. We ate ikan woku, udang garo rica, and tumis kangkung. yummmy. The bumbu in Manado is very fresh and spicy.... full of flavor. For dessert we had Es Pallubutung... Mantap. Finally we feel a little rested so we head back and prepare for our final exam the following morning.
Day 4: The final day of Training... finally
We have our final two dives this morning before taking our exam. Finally we are both starting to feel more comfortable underwater so we are actually able to enjoy the scenery around us. Which is more than outstanding on a world wide level. D really enjoys the walls and is more brave than Z to get close to all the coral. D says its like being in outspace surrounded by surreal aliens. Awesomeness at its fullest. Both dives were awesome but the last dive made both of us come out of the water thinking we definitely have got to do this again. We took the final exam in the after noon and could finally say with confidence even that we were now full-fledged open water scuba divers... yippeee.
The next day we had one more fun dive that was included in our package to round off our diving tour of Bunaken National Marine Park. It was absolutely fantastic and we are more than ready to continue our adventure in Sulawesi on land this time though.
No comments:
Post a Comment