Unawatuna Scuba Classroom with a view!

Woke up in our beautiful tree top paradise that is the Thampammm Retreat. This morning we had egg hoppers for breakfast, traditional Sri Lankan style with Sin Samble ? a kind of sweet chilli onion jam?.very nice indeed!

We headed off to the dive centre down the beach to begin our courses ? me Open Water and Paul Advanced Open Water. The centre was a complete thrive of activity when we arrived with a large group of Germans, a French couple and loads of equipment. This morning I was to be class based then to do my ?skills in the afternoon. Paul on the other hand was being fast-tracked as the others started their course the previous day.

Once all were kitted up with all the paraphernalia, they left in the boat and I went to the classroom. This is was student-centred learning is all about?.I had the videos, my book, the tests and a huge, huge pot of Ginger tea and packet of milk biscuits. The sun was shining outside but I was extremely comfortable in my little classroom. It was actually really refreshing to be learning something new. So the morning zipped by and then the advanced crew returned, then I did my skills with Sinjin in the shallow waters here outside. It was all fine?.perfect he said (written on his underwater notepad!).

After this we had lunch on the beach and Paul got drawn into a game of cricket on the beach?..very entertaining.

Back to dive school then out for a dive ? 42mins, 13metres saw a huge Nelson fish about 2metres long?.but as the Padi dive book says everything looks 33% bigger underwater!

Returned to the Retreat for a spot of Yoga and learnt a couple of new assanas ? really good session. We then decided to eat at the retreat and treat ourselves to a bottle of wine. It was a very basic cab sav and cost 2000Rupees but it was worth it as we were kind of celebrating some new work prospects that were coming through for the new year.

Dinner was ?rice and curry? not the other way round as there is a clear distinction here. It was absolutely delicious as we had one prawn curry, one bean dal, one beetroot curry and a spicy aubergine one?..yum yum yum. This was the best meal we had so far in Sri Lanka and it was in our own hotel ? it looks very possible that we will stay on here for the duration of our stay. We are the only people staying here and the service is very attentive, it is going to be a shock to the system when we return!