...He then made the 'Awesome' sign. Yeah, I thought. Awesome. About twenty feet away, the pale, terrifying, instantly-recognisable shape of a shark cut through the water in a slow curve, around us and away. It was a 6 foot long, whitetip reef shark.

We spent the day diving on the Opal Reef – a popular spot on the outer fringes of the Great Barrier Reef - having caught a high-speed catamaran out from Port Douglas with a company called HABA. Diving in Australia is big business. In Thailand on Koh Tao, our boat was twenty feet long, had 4 instructors and 8 divers. HABA's cat was about 60 feet long, had 25 divers, 75 snorkellers and 3 instructors. And a buffet lunch.

We were on a strict timetable, so after the hour and a half commute out to the first dive spot (during which we spotted another humpback whale) we were suited up, striding in, and descending to 18 metres before we really knew what was going on. This haste was probably a bit too much for Sarah and me. My oxygen consumption was awful, and Sarah had to abandon her dive after 15 minutes as her ears couldn't equalise quickly enough. HABA were kind enough to give her an extra dive for free later that day though. Sarah was (and still is) very pleased with this, as it means she now has one more dive in her log-book than me, so is technically a more experienced diver. Whatever. Has she seen a shark yet? No.

Once we got down there, the dive was great. The variety and number of fish around us was incredible. We swam around towers of coral and over giant clams, through shoals of chevron barracuda and (my favourite) yellow-tailed fusiliers, and even spotted a few clown-anenome fish (a Nemo for Alex & Rex). I was told by some of the more experienced divers that the reef wasn't in that great a condition compared to Thailand or the Red Sea, but it's hard to take these kinds of comments seriously when you've just swum with a shoal of barracuda or rapidly away from a shark!

Todd, James and I were up before 6am (poor Todd, still jetlagged after 30 hours of travel to get here!) in order to travel cross-country to Kuala Besut, the mainland gateway to the Perhentian islands. Our driver was a wannabe Michael Schumacher, and we travelled on increasingly winding roads, never below about 70kph. At times it was a white-knuckle ride, but he got us there safely, half an hour ahead of schedule. He also seemed to know all the best stops for photo opportunities, so we were able to capture the morning mist rising over the forest, which was pretty spectacular.


Once at Kuala Besut, we caught a speedboat across to the Perhentian islands – Perhentian Besa and Perhentian Kecil (literally, 'Big Island' and 'Small Island'). The speedboat itself was fantastic – 45 mins cutting through waves at high speeds. Our destination was Long Beach on Kecil, but as this was the last stop we had a great mini-tour of the other beaches and the town on Kecil island. The town was the destination of a couple of engineers who had joined us on the boat with a couple of trip switches ready-mounted on plywood, some copper wire, and a lot of tools. Clearly this is the practical side of island living.

This was the first time we hadn't pre-booked accommodation, and so we joined the hordes of backpackers trudging from hostel to hostel along the beach, trying to find the best deal. In the heat of the day, still wearing our backpacks, this was not a pleasant task, and we quickly wised up to the fact that leaving one person with the bags, whilst the other two scouted for somewhere to stay, was a lot easier! Unbeknownst to us before we arrived in Malaysia, our visit coincided with the Malay school holiday, and as a result, rooms were few and far between. We had a bit of a race against two other British couples who'd arrived on the same boat as us, and whilst we managed to bag the last two air-conditioned rooms on the beach, it did mean that Todd and Zub had to cosy up in a double bed for the first night. Not that they seemed to mind too much.

We quickly found Bubu, the best place on the island for food and to watch the football – at nearly £100 a room per night it was too pricey for us to stay at, but we certainly made the most of its facilities, becoming regular customers over our 3 days there. The boys were very happy about being able to enjoy so many matches, and even I came around to it, although I did manage to fall asleep sitting upright about 10 mins into the USA-Slovenia game.

The weather was a bit hit and miss, and so we missed out on any real sunbathing on the first day. That said, there's something about tropical rainstorms that makes them fascinating to watch – at least for the first few hours. The novelty starts to wear off a bit after that. Fortunately on our second day we awoke to glorious sunshine, and baking heat even at 9am. We made the most of the weather and the crystal clear warm water – some would say a little too much, as we were all burnt by the end of the day. The boys had decided a midday swim was a great idea, and so all sported various shades of red on their backs. As a native, Zubin had eschewed any kind of suntan cream and so was more sunburnt than the rest of us put together – so much so that by the time he went back to work, people wondered what on earth had happened to him on his few days off!

James and I also put our new PADI qualifications to good use and did our first 'fun' dive, whilst Todd and Zub came snorkelling. This was a particular achievement for Todd, who had only the previous morning overcome his fear of open water and allowed Zub to teach him how to snorkel. James and I were the only two divers in our group, and had a great dive where we saw blue-spotted stingrays, more triggerfish, some parrot fish and a couple of little Nemos (technical name: anemone fish. I prefer Nemo myself). It was fantastic to just be able to enjoy the experience of diving, and it's starting to feel a lot more 'normal' being underwater now. It also gave me the chance to try out the underwater camera (thanks Jo Fitz!) which was a lot of fun, although more challenging than photography above the water, as everything seems much closer and larger than it actually is.
We also had another Gap Yah encounter, this time at 5am, when our drunken neighbour staggered home and woke up her room-mate and half the island shouting:

“Harriet? Harriet! I've lost my Blaaackberry Harriet.”
Pause.
“My Blaaaackberry, yah! On the beach! The BEACH! I lost it on the beach. I need you to help me look for it.”
Pause.
“So I'll meet you there ok? No there, ok? There! OK?” (This continued for about 5 mins).

Eventually Todd went outside to tell her to shut up, only to find her semi-naked and being pulled into clothes by a tired cabana boy. We have no idea whether she met her friend Harriet, or if she found her Blackberry, nor do we care. Kind-hearted, forgiving citizens that we are, we made sure we made as much noise as possible as we were leaving at 7.30 the next morning.

We arrived on Ko Tao bright and early, filled with nervous anticipation about the 3 days of diving that lay ahead of us. We were picked up at the catamaran pier by our dive school and were whisked straight off to Sairee Beach (our home for the next 4 days) for a quick review of the theory we'd done some 7 months ago. Astoundingly enough of the diving knowledge seemed to have stuck for our instructor to be happy for us to continue. We then had a quick 45 min break for lunch before we were off on the boat. We'd already done all of the theory and the pool dives back in the UK last Halloween, but we opted to do a 'refresher' dive before we started on our underwater dives proper.

The refresher lesson was...interesting. I think we were both a bit nervous and I tried to do everything far too quickly, to just get it over with! The salt water felt very different to the nice chlorinated pool water, particularly when it went up your nose, and it took some getting used to. I also struggled to trust that the little regulator in my mouth would keep me alive underwater, and had to come up to the surface several times after forgetting and breathing through my nose rather than my mouth, getting a nice taste of saltwater! It was at this point I began to think perhaps the diving wasn't for me after all.....

However, the first actual dive was much better. We got used to the feeling of swimming underwater, surrounded by brightly coloured fish who were surprisingly calm around divers for the most part – since Ko Tao is second only to Cairns in terms of the number of PADI certificates it gives out, I guess this is hardly surprising! We even spotted a massive puffer-fish resting under a rock, which was pretty cool.

We had 2 more days of diving ahead of us, during which we completed 3 more dives at some of the best dive sites around the island. I veered during this time between enjoying what I was doing and being pretty much terrified – those of you who've been skiing with me will know my reaction well.

The diving itself was amazing, it was all the skills you have to complete in order to be designated an open water diver [which means you're able to dive to 18m] which I didn't like so much. The worst of all was the mask removal, where you had to remove your mask fully underwater, put it back on again, and then clear all of the water which was now inside your mask, in your nose etc. This was one of the last skills we did, some 10m down, and I was completely terrified. I came so close to bolting back up to the surface, but my instructor grabbed on to my arm, looked me in the eye, and managed to make me calm down and complete the exercise. Such a relief!! And with this completed, we were officially qualified divers. I felt very proud of myself, I have to say.

We were offered the chance to do a further dive at the end of our course, but we opted instead to give our ears a chance to readjust to living on land, and instead explored the island a little bit – up until this point we'd seen more of the underwater life on Ko Tao than anything above ground. The island is mostly famous for being a diving destination, but we hired a bike and travelled down to very southernmost point, which seemed to be more of a beach and relaxation destination. We spent an afternoon on Freedom Beach, which was absolutely stunning and which, amazingly, we had almost to ourselves. As the heat went out of the day we headed back to Sairee Beach to watch the sunset.

By coincidence, James's American cousin Dani was also finishing up 6 months of travelling on Ko Tao, so we managed to meet up with her for a celebratory drink having completed our dive course. Was really lovely to see a familiar face so far from home, and she had the honour of being the first person to see us as an engaged couple!

It was also amazing to be able to enjoy a beer with her, our only one during our entire stay on Ko Tao. We're heading next to do a detox on Ko Phangan, and as part of the 'preparation' we've been eating nothing but salads and drinking nothing but fruit juice for the best part of a week. It's been pretty depressing, especially for two confirmed carnivores, staying on islands where burgers and steaks are on every menu. I guess soon we'll discover if it was worth it.....