Indonesia Pictures - 1st instalment...

Well, no great surprise to hear that i still haven't completely got my ass in gear but we have been back off holiday for one week now and i have been working for all of that! I know, excuses, excuses... Anyway, i didn't want you all switching off so here is a beginning...

Please note that all of these 'land' pictures were taken with Mik's new Digital-SLR camera he got for his birthday! I let him have it on the 2nd day of the holiday (while we were in Bunaken, North Sulawesi) so that is where our holiday will have to begin...

Here are my dive buddies - Mik & Gary (Mik's mate from England)...

And here i am... Oh yes, girl on holiday. Sooooo relaxed...

The place we stayed and dived at was called Two Fish Divers. Nice enough place but very basic so don't expect the Ritz! But then we were there for the diving anyways. Owned by an English couple Tina and Nigel. It works well and they offered us an amazing 50% discount for being working instructors in Thailand which made the holiday far more affordable!

Our cottage was basically like this on the outside... complete with hammock :)

And then it was like this on the inside...





The resort in general was very well maintained and Mik got some lovely pics of it for us... Here is general resort area, our diving boats, dining area and some randoms we met along the way (dogs at the resort, random Indonesian man complete with fish on an exploratory walk along the beach)...






Then we would dive...








And our dive guide, 'Bull' or 'Char-lez' depending on what you feel like calling him! He was called 'Char-lez' but then all the Indonesian's think that he looks foreign and not like a local indonesian at all. 'Bull' is similar to 'farang' in Thai, kind of meaning 'westerner'. He found us lots of weird and wonderful stuff on our dives!!
Then we would sleep...

Then we would drink...

And here are a few added others to show just how spectacular the scenery was in Bunaken... The water was knee-deep for a good couple of hundred metres out from shore but then with one step further the reef shelved away steeply creating the most amazing wall dives to hundreds of metres. (We did not go that deep! But it did give me vertigo on a couple of the dives!)



On the land here you may just be able to make out a church. Indonesia is always thought of as a Muslim country but on North Sulawesi it is predominantly Christian so you see lots of churches and crosses. Rather amusingly, the in-house instructor at 'Two Fish' was telling us about the local Muslim-Christian football match. It all went off and the one policeman on the island was drunk, didn't know what to do so just stood in the middle of the pitch and let his gun off. Genius - only in Asia!

With breath-taking views like this one of the local volcano, it is no wonder that they give thanks to God! So beautiful...

Stay tuned for my next post where i will introduce you all to our 2nd week of holiday in Lembeh!
Love to you all x x x

Holiday... Part 2... A world without internet!

This is less 'Holiday... Part 2' and more 'Holiday Over'! It's a tragedy. The little islands of Bunaken and Lembeh cut us off from the rest of the world. There i was thinking that we would have internet access at our resort but that was not to be. Apologies for not writing any more while i was actually on my jollies.

Here is my new promise... I will sort through the holiday pics this week and give you all a blow by blow account of what we were up to while we were gone. As a taster, think diving with critters, relaxing in a hammock and being a part of Formula One's first ever night race in Singapore!

In the meantime... Kerry is back in Phuket xx

Holidays.... Part One....

Well, never in a million years did i envisage myself sitting at Singapore's Changi Airport on the laptop updating my blog. But thanks to friends James and BJ last night, we were not at our best as we set off from Phuket this morning. No more Sambuca boys!

Gary (Mik's mate from England) is arriving at 9pm tonight and although the original plan was for a day in Singpore, we decided that a Burger King and collapsing into semi-comas in the airport lounge was all fine and dandy. With free wi-fi throughout this marvellous airport, i have decided to make use of it.

So far you may think this has been an uneventful start to our holiday. Air Asia charging us 50 quid for excess luggage is however far from uneventful. It all feels a bit TOO eventful on Mik's credit card. Then again, our lazy afternoon at the airport has seen us perform small miracles to get our baggage back within limits. I wouldn't mind but we have exactly the same amount as before... and they didn't charge the rather wide-loaded lady in front us for excess weight in the form of her ass! No fair.

Well, without further ado, i am going to return to my book and await Gary's arrival. We sleep tonight at the Hotel Airport and are off to Manado, North Sulawesi, Indonesia in the morning. More to come...

How time moves on...

Oh my goodness, it is going to take me sooooo long to bring you all up to date. Really i owe you all an apology. I mean, I did promise to write some more soon and then completely dropped off the radar. Well, i'm more practised at this blog thing now so hopefully (fingers crossed) i will be better at keeping you all informed of my antics. Here is a current picture of me to get you started. It is not the best but it was literally taken a week ago and i owe you a current one after my past form!

First off you'll need an update since it has been 2 years since my last post. In many ways nothing has changed. I am still in Phuket, Thailand... I'm still happily living with Mik Jennings... I am still me! But in many other ways, everything has changed.

My previous post explained i was working at Oceanic Divecenter. I was. But since then, all of the people in the attached pictures have left the island to go back to Sweden. That is 'all of the people' except the lovely Mona! Mona has seen change herself in that she sold Oceanic and established a successful 'Tapas & Wine' bar/restaurant in Kata. You can check her official 'Tapas & Wine' website out for more info.

My reasons for leaving Oceanic had NOTHING to do with Mona. My reasoning was simply down to the fact that Mik got a job on a diving liveaboard, MV Colona VI. And here he is bobbing around in the ocean with his boat in the background! With him only home for one day a week, i needed a job with the flexibility to have every Friday off (to spend that day with Mik). The way dive centre's work i could not expect this out of Oceanic, so i moved.

Lo and behold, I became a tour leader on one of South Siam Diver's many day trip boats. It was awesome to be out on the boat everyday but hard work too with Mik being away all the time etc etc. Not ideal. Here's a picture of me with the boat that i was mostly working on at this time (2006-7). You may notice that Mik may have been in the Similan Islands but i had the better weather ;)

Phuket is a strange place though and every now and then an opportunity arises that changes everything. For us, that happened in August 2007. After overhearing a conversation in a bar we heard that MV Philkade were looking for new staff for the coming season. So without further ado, we dropped a mail to the boss along with our CVs. One month later we were both fully employed as Cruise Director and Dive Guide. And jeez, this is not any boat. MV Philkade is currently the best liveaboard boat operating in Thai waters in terms of luxury, space and comfort. She's a beaut. And here she is... You can also find out more about her on the official website of MV Philkade or on MV Philkade's Blog (that is regularly updated by Mik and I).

All this meant that from October to May 2007-8, Mik and i were living in eachother's pockets. And guess what? We're still together! (Ha, ha, ha...) It was brilliant. We dived the Similan Islands, Richelieu Rock, Surin Islands, Burma and much more. We had moments with mantas, with whale sharks, with eachother, with the crew and with customers that we will never forget. Spending my 26th birthday in the ass-end of Burma was certainly a novelty!! The cook did his best to throw a cake together but you're kind of limited when you're at sea that long!

In May 2008 then, we finished on the season on the boat and returned in exciting seas back to Phuket. The low season for us here in Phuket is usually a time of being skint, being bored and being generally quite miserable. But with our new job, we have year-round work and year-round salary so this low season has been really rather different.

First thing we did was move house. We are no longer in Kata but have moved closer to work with a house in Chalong. Those of you who want pictures will have to check out my facebook! Then Mik's parents came over for a visit. Then we settled down into life back on land. We are in the office 6 days a week with the odd day's diving here and there. The company are currently looking to move premises and have launched a day trip boat for local Phuket diving. To the left you can see the new boat... If you fancy day tripping in Phuket you should take a look at MV Atitara's Official Website. There are some amusing pictures of me in the Photo Gallery!!

So here we are... Today is Saturday August 23rd. I have arrived at the office (Aquamarine Divers), i have finished this blog post and now i will continue with my 'real' job. It is bank holiday weekend in England so today also marks 5 years of Mik and me being together. Awwwww... And only 16 more days until we go on holiday to Indonesia. Expect to hear more from me soon. Love to you all xxxxxxxxxxx

This is my first posting and i'm not exactly sure how it works but here goes.

I'm going to start with my life as it is at the moment since that seems like a good place to start, and despite the History degree, i don't want to bore you all with my past!

Well, i've been working at Oceanic Divecenter (http://www.oceanicdivecenter.com) in Kata since November 2005. You can check out the photo to the right - the people in the picture are Anna, Johan & Pele - the 3 lovely Swedes that worked here before i did! Oceanic was where Mik and i did our Instructor courses. These 3 cheery peeps were there then. (Anna may well be working back here next month, Johan is in Samui and Pele has, erm, fallen off the edge of the Earth?!) I worked the high season with my friend and boss, Mona, as well as Dan. It's only right that you see them too... So here's Mona and me at my birthday party last March...

And here's Dan... (he'll kill me for this!)...

We had a lot of fun and basically split all the work between us. Mainly it has been PADI Open Water Courses and Discover Scuba Dives (try-dives) but we did manage the odd Rescue Course and Advanced Course alongside. And then of course, we had to sit in the office sometimes to be on call to any passing custom - although doing things like this blog is probably more of an accurate description of our office hours!

Oh yes, and it's a mainly Swedish dive centre. Any Scandinavians that may read this, get your asses down here if you are ever in Phuket. My Swedish is pretty abysmal but i make the effort and know most of the diving terms in Swedish now, which is more than most Swedish instructors out here can do because everyone speaks diving terms in English... Weird!

Ok. That's my work. I was going to start telling you about my 'play-time' activities but the computer's going wonky. I promise not to be too long with them though! Until next time...