We are almost done with our scuba diving, open water diving certification course. It has been daunting, overwhelming and way beyond my personal comfort zone. I can at times panic during certain snorkeling situations and have to work hard to calm myself when I get water in the snorkel or mask. Generally I work myself through it. With diving, I'm OK breathing through the regulator underwater, but all the other things they have us do is much harder than I imagined & I'm often talking myself through difficult exercises. We both struggled through the final exam yesterday but passed well within the limits for passing and that was a relief. We spent two mornings in classes, with the afternoons doing pool excercises and drills, then all morning today diving on two different reefs. We go out again for half day tomorrow and do two additonal dives and then that's it. I had a tough time on the first dive and the 2nd one was going much better until the end when I started to ascend without an intention of doing so and for some reason couldn't lose my buoyancy and kept floating to the top. And I had a "squeeze" in my left ear part of the dive which is unpleasant. Ed did well with the dive and loves it. I'm not really eager to go again tomorrow though the diving itself is stunning. We saw lobster, sting ray, barracuda, and many other species of fish. It's an inspiring world down under. By tomorrow at 1, we should be done. I'm exhausted. Where is my rum drink?