off the Reef of Rarotonga, Cook Islands
[Audio https://dl.dropbox.com/u/9901364/17%20Under%20The%20Sea.mp3%5D

going down
Tim and I chose the Cook Islands to get certified in scuba diving. There wasn’t any reason that we chose there to get our PADI license, other than it being the first stop on our trip, and we didn’t even have a great reason for wanting to get certified – but in the spirit of our travels we wanted to open ourselves up to as many new experiences as possible – and there’s a lot of cool things going on below sea level.
We didn’t set up the training in advance, instead the first thing we did when we got to the island was wander around and into the closest dive shop. In there, we met Courtney, an Aussie, who had the exact schedule we wanted for classes and was going to be our instructor. More