Brock Waterman's World Travel Pictures - Bali Trip 1 - 2005-07-03 - Padangbai

Sunday July 3, started with a wake-up knock at 8am so that I could get breakfast & get packed before Pro Dive got there at 9. Breakfast consisted of an omelet (very common here) & a fruit platter, plus tea. The fruit platter was good & included an orange that was actually a deep green on the outside, which was something new to me :) After breakfast I got packed & met Pro Dive who were on time as usual :) We walked the short distance to the dive site & got ready for our first 2 dives. I decided to just wait on the boat in the water for the 45 minutes in between dives before coming back for lunch. The first dive was tough for me, I had problems with water in my mask which took away from an otherwise good dive. I also just never got comfortable underwater which just happens sometimes. I still saw great stuff & it was not that bad, just not the way I would prefer it to be. I also ran out of air (we were looking at a cool lion fish & knew it would happen) & shared air with Kutut for the last 30 seconds of the dive. It was the first time I got to use an Alternate Air source in a real life experience, which was good experience considering that I want to become a dive master. Kutut was also nearly caught by a fisherman on the dive when he had his hand hooked, he got it off quick before any damage was done. On this dive we saw some cool frog fish, I even spotted one Kutut didn't see, which is unusual because he usually points everything out to me since he knows the sites so well. We also saw pipe fish & a cow fish (our first, it is also called a box fish).

In between the dives sitting on the boat Kutut & I did more talking which is when he explained the economic collapse of 1997 that they experience. 20000-40000 Rupiah used to be a United States Dollar, which is 2 to 4 times more than what it is now for my mathematically challenged friends :) He also explained things like how people who owned banks had been bailed out by the government only for many of them to take the money & flee the country. We talked about his view of other Asian countries, many about which ones would become powerful & where Bali imports/exports products to. I learned the

Our second dive was much better as I did great with my breathing. I had 500 psi left & it was my longest dive ever, 52 minutes. We also saw cuttlefish & garden eels plus a sting ray up close. I was trying to last over 50 minutes on the breathing for this one, but to have 500 psi left (I started with 2700psi) was something I was really happy with. I felt so comfortable it made up big time for the previous dive, plus I didn't have any problems with my mask on this one which was good, because I was using my own mask & didn't want to have to buy a new one.

After the dive we caught lunch & got hassled by people trying to sell me things. We also talked to a Japanese guy who had did one dive & was underwater for only 15 minutes :) He was funny plus he explained his views of countries, dislike for Korea & China especially & that he liked Australia & America. Kutut was surprised by this because of the bombing of Japan by the US in WW2, but like the guy explained to Kutut, this is in the far past & now the US is Japan's #1 ally. I knew this all from my time with Sayoko as I had talked with her about it, but it was new to Kutut. After that we got everything loaded & headed towards Ubud where I would spend the night.