From ABC to IDC

It’s been three weeks since we returned to Nusa Lembongan, three weeks of lovely sun and socialising but more importantly three weeks of diving AND three weeks of no decompression sickness which is a big WHOOP WHOOP in my world! Because now I can start looking to the future once again. Not that I’d really stopped but I did have a small fear that I’d return and even diving conservatively on Nitrox I would continue to get skin bends and have to rethink the next few years but nope, FULL STEAM AHEAD.

Having dived mainly in Indonesia, and been utterly ruined for other dive shops on Lembongan by the fantastic owners, crew, boat and customers at World Diving but with little prospect of permanent employment with them, I really want to spend some time diving elsewhere before and after my IDC (Instructor Development Course). I want to gain experience, see different sea life and explore another country and the Philippines ticks all three; the diving is world renown, we’ve never been there and they have great dive shops.

So for the last few weeks when not diving or socialising I have been gently researching and narrowed my choices down to a handful, asking each the same set of extensive questions and getting responses ranging from the fabulous to the simply can’t be bothered. A bizarre response when someone wants to spend a not insignificant amount of money with you and have them teach you how to be a PADI instructor but clearly I won’t be choosing any of those ones! 😳

Sadly a few of my favourites fell at the last hurdle – reviews, which yes probably should have been one of the first hurdles but anyway. I am a big reviewer myself so put a lot of stock in people’s reviews and ten awful ones in the last six months, each with a perfectly pithy non apologetic response from the management is more than enough to give me pause, especially when diver safety was mentioned in more than a few. So with a few favourites up my sleeve I am back to the drawing board but with a planned start date in late October/November I’m not exactly in a rush and anyway, now I can focus on the very important task of choosing and buying the right dive gear for Ma to bring out when she visits next month ☺️ Xx