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Reporting for the first time as a certified PADI Open Water Diver :)

Had 6 dives in the last 3 days and to be honest, I'm pretty exhausted. After all of us passed the course yesterday, we decided to do the famous Manta Point dive today.

We took a speedboat for about 1 hour and could already see the place from afar... 30 boats with about 10 divers each in a small bay. You can imagine how crowded it is underwater. Even though I saw 3 manta rays, I'm still quite disappointed with this place. It's really sad to see how this beautiful diving spot is being exploited for tourism, and even worse, to see how some people behave down there. Most of the mantas can't even properly enter the bay because some divers swim so close to the animals for the perfect photo, causing them to turn around immediately.

The second dive site was much nicer. The dive instructors call it the 'reef of many colorful fish', and that describes it pretty well. You don't know where to look because there's action everywhere.

I would love to post some underwater photos now, but it seems like the website doesn't allow it.

During the dive, I was with the sensei of the diving school, who is about 60 years old and has done over 18,000 (!!!) dives. You feel a bit silly struggling while he effortlessly drifts with the current for an hour without moving... it reminded me a bit of the old turtle in Finding Nemo 😂

The time in Padang Bai was really cool with all the people I met there, but tomorrow we're heading to Ubud.

Your trusted dive professional,

Martin