7. Drinking and diving

While Max was away drinking himself to death in Vegas, I decided to spend some money on something useful. So while he was working out gambling bets (debts?), I was calculating bottom times; he was dancing on the tables, I was studying them; he was staring at the bottom of a glass, I was scanning the bottom of the ocean. And I had more than a hangover to show for my money.

I now have a(nother) scuba diving certification! As it was 11 years ago since I first trained - and I can count the number of dives I've done in the meantime on one hand - I thought it might be a good idea to start from scratch and learn to dive in more challenging conditions. It was a pretty intensive course and by the second day we were diving with sea lions at an island 4.5 hours boat-ride away from LA!

The second weekend Max joined me for my certifying dives and we saw a horn shark (don't worry Mum, it was just a little one!) and a lobster and loads of other animals that I know inside out from working at the aquarium but have never seen in the wild!

I'm not sure about diving in waters of 15C though. There is so much equipment needed when diving anyway - the cold water paraphernalia pretty much doubles the amount of kit you have to carry around, and then wear! To counteract the extra buoyancy provided by the 7mm wetsuit, hood, wetsuit top, booties and gloves, you have to wear a substantial percentage of your body weight in lead just to allow you to get underwater!

'Pah' to all that, I say! Warm waters of Honduras, here we come...