Scuba Diving Extravaganza

Here's some writing from my days out on the boat...

10:45am, Saturday March 26th. Completed two dives so far today, the first one being at sunrise about 6am. Our second dive was at 8am, both of which were at The Three Sisters on the Milln Reef on The Great Barrier Reef. I am feeling considerably better now than I was about 18hrs ago. During our first dive about 1pm yesterday, I couldn’t equalize. I made it down to 6.2m and couldn’t go any further so the dive master trainee and myself ascended and I got back on the boat. I was totally upset, disappointed, embarrassed, frustrated, and pissed. I could feel my right sinus blocking up for whatever reason, but ate a couple cough drops in an attempt to clear my sinus’, and hopped back in the water for the 4pm dive. Got to 8.9m and the pain was bad, so up I came again. This time I was feeling hopeless, frustrated, and sad. I ate dinner, was trying not to be too much of a spoil sport, and went to bed for a nap. About 9pm we had a briefing on the upper deck with our instructor Ethan, where he was going over the log books. I was still feeling pretty hopeless and slightly sea sick, so I was not overly enthused. The underwater photographer chatted with us about taping our underwater certification and waking up at 530am, wearing sunglasses underwater... basically just totally hamming it up. Hard to be too “hammy” when you think your dreams are coming to an end and you’re accepting that maybe you’re just not meant to dive. Ethan and I chatted a bit more; he said that if you can get past 2m then you can equalize. I took a Sudafed before bed to clear the sinus’ and give it a go in the morning. Like a trooper, this is what I did. For my entry into the water we all did a “James Bond roll” which is a front somersault into the water. Good fun! Then, low and behold, while watching my dive computer and equalizing every foot or two, I made it down to 16.6m with no problems! Woo hooo! So relieved. About noon today we’re watching the video of everyone getting certified, eating lunch and relaxing till about 4pm when we do our next dive. I’m now officially a certified underwater diver! The next stage is getting our level 2, or Advanced certification. This will require underwater navigation, solo dives with our buddies, and descending past the 18m limit that goes with just having your open water cert. I feel I have learned a lot, I’m confident in the water, and am not afraid of seeing sharks! That’s a big one for sure. After our 4pm dive, we’re doing our night dive at 7pm! That should be interesting to say the least. Maybe we’ll see some sharks! These are not great white sharks - we’re talking about mostly just reef sharks. Great white’s are not found this far north because the water is too warm. Southern Australia is where you’ll find them, and even if you did encounter one while diving, it would probably just swim on by. Sharks are extremely important in our oceans to keep the ecosystems level. Stop killing the sharks!! We made up a little white board sign for under the water and mine said on side one: HELP HELP HELP, side two: SAVE OUR OCEANS. AND,SHARKS ARE OK TOO. Thank goodness I have developed this appreciation for sharks and this understanding as it makes being in the water so much more enjoyable. Hopefully y’all can take it to heart too.
Two more sleeps on the boat, then back to Cairns till April 4th. Lisa’s coming up to Cairns for a visit on the weekend so I’ll get to see her again before I leave the east coast. Hopefully I’ll get to see more sharks and sting rays and turtles down there before this trip is over!

9pm. SHARKS SHARKS SHARKS!!!!!! Just had my favourite dive so far of the trip – the night dive! We go out with torches and look for sharks, sleeping turtles, and little red eyed crustations. What is it we see first? SHARKS, and lots of them!! Soooo cool! Ethan has been hyping them up for days so it’s definitely starting to wear off on us. Again, it’s not great white sharks we’re seeing, it’s reef sharks. They’re not completely harmless, but close enough. Perhaps they were attracted by the light our boat was giving off and illuminating fish, because as soon as we descended they were everywhere! One cruised by me about 2m away. We then continued our dive and saw some sleeping turtles and other various sea creatures.
This trip is really a diving marathon! I get myself into things and say what they involve, but don’t actually think through what it’s going to be like. For example, “30hrs of travel time to get to Oz”. That’s a long bloody time but it doesn’t really hit you till you’re at about hour 15 with another 15 to go. Same as gearing up to do 4 dives a day for 3 days. Wake up 530am, in the water by 6am, out at 645am, breakfast at 7am, second dive at 8am, then we have a free dive at either 11am or 4pm. Today I chose the 4pm free dive which was interesting... five of us went out WITHOUT ETHAN which was a little disorientating. But great experience none the less. I’m really looking forward to doing some underwater navigation tomorrow morning as my underwater nav is about twice as bad as my above ground nav which is pretty bad already. 6am is the advanced dive going down 30m, 8am is nav dive. Another night dive tomorrow so super stoked for that!! Our last two specialty dives will be the boat drop, and underwater photography. In the boat drop, we drive up the reef against the current a fair ways, roll backwards off the boat like the Navy Seals, then cruise down the reef with the current to hopefully see some more marine life that swims away from our main boat and dive site. Biggest challenge here would be getting back INTO the little boat.. remove the buoyancy control jacket (thing that wears like a vest and inflates to keep you floating on the surface and also houses the tank and all hoses), and flutter kick yourself up into the boat.

So now I'm certified as an advanced adventurer, which means I can dive up to 30m, and can go out without an instructer or dive master. We always must dive with a buddy though! I'll try and get a couple dives in in Bali, so we'll see. I feel so much more confident in the water now, it is great! So happy I did it and it all worked out!

1230pm, March 30th, 2011

Been back on land for a day and a half now, but sometimes I still feel like I'm on a boat, swaying away. And no, I'm not "off my face" (drunk) when I feel this! Met some really awesome people. Yesterday a friend and I whom I met on the boat went up to the zoo atop the Casino downtown Cairns. Saw my first koala, some cool lizards, Kookaburras and I fed this crazy bird that looks like a tree branch a dead chick. Lisa is coming up for a visit on Friday for the weekend, then Monday I leave for Indonesia to see Gordon again for a couple weeks!

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