Life as a Divemaster

I've been in Bali about six weeks now. It was a bit of a rough start and, due to a few setbacks, I do admit to struggling to see the bright side of things at times. However, I did just that. I struggled through it and here I am, still with Blue Season in Bali, getting ready to start my IDC (Instructor Development Course) on the 14th. As of Christmas Eve Phoebie Barta has achieved Divemaster status! And a special thanks to Neil, my mentor and extremely experienced/knowledgeable diver I would have to say! Since then I have been assisting with courses and tagging along every chance I get to learn as much as I can from the local guides here. Its incredible how well they know the sites and seem to just be able to 'sense' the marine life around them. Our typical day looks like this: Up at 5:30am to leave for the shop by six. Load up all the tanks/gear we will need for the day's diving. Breakfast! Then the guests arrive and we make ourselves available to lend a hand wherever needed. We are off! Either on the boat or, more frequently, to one of the beautiful off-shore sites on the North-East side of the island by bus (about 2-2.5 hours) Then we dive! We do either 2 or 3 dives with a lunch break in between. There are some amazing things to see out here, some of my favourites being the various brightly coloured nudibranch, lion fish, scorpion fish, frog fish, ribbon eels, black tip reef shark, barracuda, circling jack fish and even a couple manta rays!! I am still hoping to see a mola mola as Bali is one of the few locations in the world they are spotted frequently. So i'll keep my fingers crossed! Once we are back at the shop we wash down all the gear and unload the tanks before heading home. At this point almost all of the interns can be found at the beloved night market, where a wealth of diverse and delicious balinese food awaits, after which we are usually off to our favourite bar, On-On's, where you can almost always find us either shooting some pool or winding down from our stressful day at 'work' over a few Bintang.