One goal of this trip to get my open water diving license and of course it would have been already possible to obtain it in Indonesia or Thailand but somehow something always came in between like a volcano or another excursion. So this time I would definitely go for it!
Okay we planned to spend 7 days in Cairns, 5 days diving and 2 days hanging out at the local lagoon (cause you can t swim in the sea due to the jelly fish). We had gotten a nice hostel with pool and a sort of „patio“ (social backyard) for quite a reasonable price. Fabian and Tim wanted to go diving as well but somehow it always takes ages until they decide when how and with which company... and they tend to postpone the decision.... „manana manana!!“ But as we were only staying 7 days and the course takes 5, i figured that there was no time to be lost. So I simply asked the reception guy which company he would recommend... ProDive! Okay excellent, as there was anyway not much price difference I went for ProDive. As the course on Saturday was already full, I started already on Friday.
They picked me up in the morning to take me to their diving center where I would have theory classes and some pool practice. The theory and pool practice takes 2 days and then we would spend another 3 days out in the reef, sleeping on the boat! EXCITING!!!!
Okay maybe 2 days of pool practice and theory is a little bit too much cause in other dive schools around the world they do they whole course in 3 days. Anyway it is the Great Barrier Reef and God knows how long it is going to be there from now on (pollution, Chinese tankers crashing into it, global warming etc...). To be honest the pool practice and the classes are quite boring and nothing special. At the end I had to pass an exam... haha!!!! If you don t pass this one, then you have a serious mental problem and you didn t pay attention at all!
Fabian and Tim had also finally decided to go for diving. Tim selected though another company and Fabian would join me for his diving experience in the Great Barrier Reef. He is already an advanced diver, so he doesn t need a course or an instructor. So for him it was of course cheaper, especially as he got a special offer :-)
Before we actually went to go diving in the reef, the diving school took us to a dive shop. Surprise!!!!! the dive shop belongs to the school or the other way round. For days they kept on telling us how important it is to have your own gear and that it is absolutely worth it! Of course we would also get a VERY special price, which is such a bargain that one would be stupid not to buy your own gear. WELL... the set of fins, snorkel, mask and shoes (for the fins) would have cost ONLY around 400 ADS! SUCH a bargain! I simply cut of the discussion about whether I would buy something or not with the sentence: „sorry I am broke“. Issue solved!!!
Okay Great Barrier Reef experience: Just wonderful! 3 days on a boat doing the following: diving, food, diving food, diving food, sleeping! on the second day we also squeezed in a night dive. so 4 times per day diving! That s a hell of a lot of diving! Once you are in the water everything is just very calm and relaxed. Wonderful colourful corals, fish swarms passing by, turtles moving calmly through the water and once in a while a few bubbles from fellow divers. Really nice and relaxing! The only pain are the diving preparations! Put on your cold and wet stinger suit, maybe put on your wetsuit as well (in case you feel cold in the water), put on your gear, clean your mask, check out from the boat (the have a list, to make sure nobody is left in the water) and finally get into the water. To you that might not really sound like an effort BUT the stinger suit is such a bastard to put on, it takes for ever, meanwhile there is a quite chilly bries, your are fighting with the bloody stinger suit until you are finally in but your diving instructor walks over to inform you that you have put it on the wrong way, so again getting out and in (another 15 minutes). Meanwhile freezing your ass off (excuse my language).
Anyway the first 2 days we could not really explore the reef as we still had to do some diving practice and exercises. But finally on the second day after the second dive we were „certified divers“!!!! Hurray = my buddy Inga (from Holland) and me could go on our first dive alone! I was sooo hoping to see Brian, a giant turtle that hangs around at that area.... but no luck!!!
This night we went for a night dive.... Uh thats slightly scary, cause first of all everything is damn dark and secondly before we got into the water we could see already a few sharks circling our boat. Wooaaa SHARKS nice!!!!!!! they are so calm and when you see them in the water (if you can) you instantly relax and stop everything to admire them! Amazingly beautiful creatures. And for those of you who start to freak out cause they have seen recently some documentary where a great white attacked somebody and was seen with an arm in his mouth.... these sharks weren t great whites and they don t attack human beings!!!!
The next day i participated in the adventure diver course, which enables you to dive up to 30 metres. Okay maybe not absolutely necessary, but what the hell...
So of course we had to do a deep dive (30 metres) and for those of you who are not too familiar with diving: the deeper you dive the more nitrogen you ll have in your blood. Sometimes that leads to a small overdoses, which makes you feel a little bit as if you were drunk. Everything is very funny, and you start making silly things. Which is in general if you dive in a group of 6 people no problem, cause it will happen to maybe one of them and the others can take care. But let us assume that you dive down to 60 meters only with your dive-buddy, and both get „narced“, that might be dangerous, as the situation could get out of control. Divers have been reported to believe that they can breath under water, cause they got „narced“.... I think you get the point!!!
Anyway we went down and guess what I got slightly narced. Okay nothing to worry, I just thought it to be hilarious that a fish ate a tomato that my dive instructor had brought. Good experience!!!
The last dive that we did was a foto dive. So I had the opportunity to take some underwater fotos. It is REALLY difficult. You have all this nice scenery BUT you have to come very close to take a good fotos. PROBLEM: if you try to come close to a fish, it will disappear. So I kept chasing various colourful fish in the Great Barrier Reef. My diving instructor got almost crazy with me, as I got lost several times! AAAHHHH, but you know... I saw Nemo and of course I had to have a foto of him ;-)
Anyway, it was a really nice trip but of course everything has an end. We celebrated the nice trip with a couple of ciders in a local bar in Cairns!
Kisses from the Great Barrier Reef
Astrid
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