2. Aboard the live aboard.

3 days into my liveaboard and all is going well…. None of the bad triggerfish sitings as yet (which has surprised and delighted me!). Also not one puffer fish either (which is much sadder and a bit odd. I hope the puffer population is ok?). My boat can hold up 22 divers but there are only 20 of us and excitement of all excitements, I got a cabin to myself so no need for tiresome politeness or sharing and snore free nights! It’s just above the water line and I get a nice view out my little portholes (you can only open them when we’re parked up somewhere otherwise the splashes and fishes might come inside the boat if the port holes are open when we’re moving!)

The mix of people on my boat are all European with the exception of one lady called Robyn, who is from the USA. She is my buddy for the week - she has double the amount of dives that I have, is nice and chilled underwater and doesn’t bash you out the way to get to take photos first and is good on air so she’s an excellent choice! There are also Germans, Swiss, Polish, Spanish and a Brits. It’s a nice group and aside from one German lady who likes to get to every photo op first, regardless of any divers around her or the general etiquette of waiting your turn, there aren’t any d*ckheads! I’m also not sure if said German lady is with her son or her much younger boyfriend …it could be either, which is a bit odd.

Our days have fallen into the usual routine of dive, eat, sleep, repeat. It’s a meme or thing you see on t-shirts a lot but given there are mostly people crashed out in the shade, in their cabins or on the sofas napping in between every dive, it’s extremely accurate. We are well fed - significant over fed really and follow a nice routine and structure. Kind of like being in prison really, only fun. And free!

• 6am - wake up call (stagger out of bread and go and drink tea)

• First breakfast

• 6.30am - brief and first dive

• Second breakfast )

• (Eggs of your choice with a range of accompaniments)

• (Time for a short nap)

• 10.30am - brief and second dive

• Lunch (only 3 courses - soup, main course and pudding)

• (Time for a more substantial nap / sleep)

• 3.30pm - brief and third dive

• Snack (today’s snack was burger and chips with salad then fruit and  chocolate banana for snack pudding. Just a small snack in between lunch and dinner!)

• 7.30pm - brief and nightdive (so far I’ve skipped these as unless there’s something incredible to see, I’m not going in the sea when it’s dark and you can’t see the baddies!… but they can still see you!)

• Dinner (4 courses, always served, plated up ready - soup, salad, main course, pudding)

• Go to bed

I’m told there may be limited internet later so I will see if I can upload this and a few photos so far!