After parting ways with Olga and Aaron in Siquijor, we made our way back to Alona Beach to begin our PADI Dive Course! We were referred to a dive shop called Piratas Alona Dive Center and are SO happy that we were because we had the coolest dive instructor in the world. Karim was not only an excellent dive instructor, he made us feel totally at home and we ended up staying a few extra days in Alona Beach to hang out with him and his awesome friends. Thank you, Karim, for showing us a wonderful time in Alona Beach and introducing us to the magical underwater universe!

Miles walked:                      11.5
Miles transported:              ~85
Miles SCUBA’d:          Not enough!

Dive Course in Alona Beach

And so it begins!

After the boring theory stuff (kidding… it was actually pretty interesting), we finally got in the water. Down we go!

We saw a bunch of cool stuff (corals, fish, eels, turtles… even octopi!!), but I’ll save those photos for the Balicasag Island section next 🙂 For now, check out this photo that was our home for the week:

Where we hung out with Karim and the fellow Spanish dive instructors. Karim even held a delicious barbecue party one night that he so graciously invited us to:

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Day Trip to Balicasag Island

Off we go with our new friends – Reetta and Osmo from Finland and Britt and Maarten from The Netherlands (remember the latter two, as they may or may not make an appearance in the next post!):

Approaching the famous Balicasag Island:

Excited to get in this crystal clear water:

It’s time!

Unbelievable how many things we saw, starting with this gorgeous coral:

And these beautiful fish:

And eels!

AND TURTLES (and this time we weren’t wasted like we were when we saw our first live turtle in Barbados)!!!

We even saw an octopus! But that dirty bastard went into hiding as soon as we came by. Check out our video below to get a tiny glimpse of him. Nonetheless, you bet we were celebrating after this incredible dive:

Practicing our “O-bubbles” (not very successfully):

Underwater selfie (that I failed to appear in):

Adios, Balicasag. You were spectacular!

And Adios, Karim! You were even more spectacular than Balicasag! Can’t wait to see you again, hopefully sooner rather than later 🙂

And finally, I’ll leave you with yet another awesome video that Francy made of our diving adventures: