Diving in Paradise

Hey Everyone!

I just got back from my trip to Cairns up in northern Queensland and what an adventure it was!  I went diving, spent time in the sun (not too much though, I'm not even burned!), looked at the stars, met some cool people and lived out over the Great Barrier Reef!  It was absolutely amazing.  I'm so thankful I got to spend some quality time in this wonderful part of Australia!

I took a late flight up to Cairns on last Thursday and arrived a day before my dive trip would begin.  After a night in the hostel I took the day to wander around Cairns were it was sunny and 25 degrees C (80 F).  I swam in the pool, met some scottish backpackers and had a bbq with them.  That night I laid low and got to bed early, with an early day ahead of me.

The next day I went to the dive shop to get ready for our trip at 6 am!  It was an early start but we were meant to fit in four dives on the day, so we needed to get going.  We climbed aboard the ScubaPro III and headed out to the Great Barrier Reef.  The first reef we visited is called Milln Reef, and provided some cool vantage points for diving.  I am fortunate to have an underwater camera (as you might remember from my previous posts) and so I got some pretty cool pictures.  Here's just a few:

After four dives including a night dive at Milln Reef, we were all super tired and crashed.  The next day we went to Flynn Reef, which proved to be just as beautiful:

The next two days were spent at this reef at different spots.  One was like a gigantic wall of coral about 30 m (100 ft) tall.  Another spot was called the coral gardens, which had some awesome outcroppings of coral everywhere.  The visibility of all the places was usually pretty good too, so I had a wonderful time Diving!  Of course the thousands of fish that we saw (including Nemo, sea turtles and reef sharks) were the definite highlight!

I also did my advanced certification for diving, which allows me to dive up to 40 m (130 ft), dive wrecks, and generally make me a better diver.  I had to do some cool tasks, involving buoyancy control.  When diving, you have to use your breathing as a means to control yourself.  When you breath in, you go up.  When you exhale, you go down.  Controlling it is a skill that can be tricky to master even though it seems so easy.  As a test, we swam through hula hoop rings to prove we could control our buoyancy well enough:

And of course out on the ocean the stars were phenomenal!  In the southern hemisphere can you see the Southern Cross and the entirety of the Milky Way.  It was breath taking, especially at 3 am.  I was thankful to get up there and experience something so amazing.

I also met some really cool people on board:  a family from Aussie, Adam from Scotland, Peter who's a doctor in Cairns, heaps of people from Germany and Czech, and the crew of the boat who were from Germany, Poland, New Zealand and Switzerland.

Finally, after 11 dives and a truly incredible adventure, we came back to Cairns.  You are supposed to wait 24 hours after diving to fly, so I figured I'd spend a day in Cairns, relax and fly out the next night.  However, my flight got cancelled and I was moved to the next day, so I had two nights in Cairns.  It was a small hiccup, but in the end I got to spend an extra day in paradise and wonderful weather.  I spent most of the time reading two books, 1984 and the BFG, out by the public pool near the ocean (Cairns doesn't have a beach front, just mud flats).  All in all, it was worthwhile.

One more day of this?  I'm all right with that.

Now I'm back in Melbourne, gearing up for my exam next Friday.  I still have a bit of time but it's not too soon to begin preparing.  Hopefully all goes well and I can do well on my exam!

Cheers!
Paul