Here’s my dive class out on the boat… next to me is Stephan, a funny German dude
who could never understand what I was saying (more on that later), Holly, a
super cool Cairns local whose partner, Megan, also joined us on the dive trip,
Louise, our British instructor who was super strict but taught us a lot and
sadly has now left Cairns for three months on a Dairy farm in Tasmania and
Sarah, my dive buddy who was on the English national swimming team and swam the
English Channel a few years ago. Quite
an interesting bunch!
The first day and a half on the boat I had instructional
dives with my classmates so Alex was forced to find a new partner. We were unaware when we signed up that it was
self-guided diving, ie. there was no one to show you around, watch your air or
bring you back to the boat – you were on your own, which was a little scary at
first. Alex’s partner Sam had him
convinced he was an expert diver but it didn’t take long for Alex to realize
that it was all evidence to the contrary.
These two burned through air in 20 minutes and were all over underwater
(though they were very conscientious not to damage the reef) but they had fun
and cracked me up with their stories when they got back. My dives were obviously more focused on
education but we had fun and saw a lot underwater as our instructor directed us
to all the spots with turtles, big fish and occasionally sharks.
After my course was finished, we had the option to take
three more instructive dives to get Adventure Diver certified, which would
allow us to depths of 30m (vs. only 18m with our Open Water Cert). Alex and I jumped on that opportunity as we
want to dive the Yongala, an 1800s ship wreck four hours south of here that is
rated one of the Top Ten dive sites in the world (it requires Advanced cert. as
it is in water about 25m deep). The
extra dives were cool, we had a deep dive to 27m (Alex’s favorite of the trip),
an underwater photography dive (my favorite - my underwater photos are just ok but I hope you all enjoy them) and a night dive with sharks! Not everyone enjoyed the night dive, though I
thought it was pretty cool, and Sarah, my dive partner, freaked out when she
saw a shark and couldn’t stop crying the rest of the night (despite me
repeatedly reminding her that given her swimming prowess, had anything gone
wrong it was me who would have been shark bait not her).
 |
| Night Diving with Flashlights |
We had some characters on our boat. Ben, our dive supervisor, was a hilarious
German guy who ran a tight ship but made it fun. I was taking this picture of Alex about to do
his first night dive when he popped in to get in on the shot.
Stephan, my classmate, as I mentioned often didn’t understand
anything I said correctly and would often type the word or phrase into his
iphone for translation. One night after
our last dive, I came up to the galley where we all hung out and said I ‘felt
like a whole new woman’ after my shower, he laughed and asked me to repeat
before getting out his iphone. James, an
awesome Brit living in Sydney who we quickly came to adore, laughed as well as
he knew what Stephan had misunderstood.
When I looked over Stephan had entered ‘horny’ into his translator and
we all burst out laughing and as I clearly annunciated the phrase correctly,
which made Stephan blush for the rest of the night. Since it was Louise, my instructor’s, last
trip on the boat, the rest of the crew pranked her repeatedly throughout the
weekend. It started with a live sea
cucumber being thrown into her bunk while she was sleeping and concluded with
her being doused in barbeque sauce on the last day. So, needless to say, despite being on a
tightly run ship, we had a lot of fun on top of our diving.
The accommodations were cozy but we were so tired after
early wake-up calls and diving non-stop that sleep came easy. The toilets doubled as showers and cozy didn’t
begin to describe how tight those were.
There were forty of us on the boat sharing six toilets, two of which
were on the back deck and only used for rinsing off when we came out of the
water. We were allowed 30 second rinses
and one three minute shower each day due to the limits of freshwater the boat
could hold. One thing that was
surprisingly good on the boat was the food and boy was there a lot of it! The cook worked non-stop feeding us from 6am –
10pm before and after each dive.
Sometimes it was something as small as a piece of cake and tea but it
was always delicious (except for the break that she served fruitcake).
Three days flew by way too quickly. Alex got eleven dives and I got nine and we
both had a blast. We made new friends,
saw the GBR with all its beauty for the first time and had a new shared hobby
to enjoy. It was bittersweet as we began
our three hour rocky trip back to shore but everyone was exhausted and ready to
continue on with our respective journeys.
Stephan was heading back to his girlfriend in Germany after three months
in Australia, Holly & her partner, Megan, only had a few weeks remaining in
Cairns before they moved to Adelaide, Sarah was headed to Dubai where she had
accepted a four year position training Olympians for the 2016 games, Louise was
preparing for her farm work in Tasmania and Alex & I were looking forward to
settling in Cairns and unpacking our bags for a few months
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