I arrived in Manado, Indonesia the 21st September after a 34h travel from the Seychelles (where I did a Marine Conservation and Research Program before). Therefore it was really late at night when I finally got to Manado, so I had to spend a night there before continuing my travel the next day to Bunaken Island.

On my first dives here, I was really impressed by the coral diversity and the amount of turtles every dive (12 in one dive – it would be really hard to make turtle dives here, on which you have to capture the turtles behavior).

I had to complete the Rescue Diver course first before entering the Divemaster program. The Rescue Diver course is quite amusing and I would recommend it to every diver who wants to improve their own and other people’s safety.

The same time I started my DM course, James started his IDC so I got to help him and played student, which also improved my skills. Besides, it was really interesting to see how instructors are taught.

Furthermore, I could assist on a Open Water Diver course, which was pretty stressful at the beginning, but I started to feel more comfortable with the time. While assisting on that course, I also completed my 100th dive.

I spent a lot of time in the pool the last few days, doing some skill circuits and I tried Sidemount, which was a lot of fun.

But the best part might have been on a surface interval, where we saw a whaleshark from the boat.  I’m leaving this week for Lembongan Island, and I’ll see how it goes down there.