I heart diving

Monday, November 24th

Needless to say waking up at 6am was brutal.  I was waking up every hour of the four hour sleep because I was so nervous that we might wake up late and miss the boat.  Not visiting the Great Barrier Reef would be a huge miss in Cairns.  But I was so tired, I wasn't sure if I was going to make it through the trip.  So tired.

Our meeting point for our down under cruise and dive tour was at the Reef Terminal.  It's about a 10 minute walk from our hotel.  We made it there on time, but there was already a long line of people checking in.  Steph and Bernice were in front of the line, so when they checked in the guy asked for all our names too.  Our trip cost us AUD129 ($83), which included our boat ride to Norman reef and Hastings reef, lunch, snorkeling, and an intro dive.  Pretty good deal I have to say.

We were all virgin divers giving diving a shot.  Connie and I are weak swimmers and Natasha is a bit of a scary cat.  We were an interesting combo.  After we did a bit of cruising, we had our diving talk.  The instructor told us what to expect underwater, the hand signals since we can't speak under water, and two tests we need to perform before allowing us to dive.  One is pressing the top of our mask and blowing out.  The second is to breathe in, take the regulator out from our mouth while blowing out, put the regulator back in our mouth and say "two" and start normal breathing again.  Seems easy enough, but under water may be a totally different thing.

Connie and Natasha were put in the first group, while Steph, Bernice, Mel, and I were in group 6.  Each dive was about 20mins, so we had a lot of time to waste before it was our turn.  We decided to go snorkeling at Norman reef while waiting.  Connie and Natasha had to start their dive immediately.  Both girls were really nervous.  I was very excited for them.

The snorkeling was still pretty amazing, although Steph and Bernice prefer Hawaii.  Parts of the reef were colorful, but there was also a lot of dead coral.  I saw some fat girl constantly standing on it and got annoyed.  I said to her, you shouldn't stand on the coral because you are killing it.  I should of clarified and said you are killing hundreds and thousands of years of formation.  After 30mins or so, I went back to the boat to check if Connie and Natasha were back.  I saw Natasha and convinced her to snorkel with me.  She apparently got too scared and requested to get back on the boat.  Perfectly fine if she wasn't comfortable with it.  Connie kept on going.  To make her comfortable, I told Natasha to get a noodle to help her stay floating and I held her hand the whole time while we snorkeled, showing her what she needs to do and pointing out things for her to see.  I think she really enjoyed it.  She was chuckling underwater.

We saw lots of damsel, parrot, warse, butterfly, rabbit, and angel fish.  Even saw sea cucumbers!  The coral was all sorts of colors - green, blue, purple, orange.  Very nice.  I was a bit surprised how shallow it was though.  As we were snorkeling, I saw divers under us.  After taking a closer look, it was Connie!  There were two people on the left hand side of the instructor and Connie on the right.  I was snorkeling right above them.  Definitely a cool experience.

After 15mins, I went to meet Connie at the boat to see how her experience was.  She loved it, so much that she was thinking to not snorkel till the next reef.  Since I am so convincing, she did get back in the water with me.  Connie, Natasha, and I snorkeled away until I heard the whistle blow and it was my turn to dive.

I have to admit, I was pretty nervous.  Being not the best swimmer didn't help calm my nerves.  We were also nervous that our masks were going to fog up, so we asked one of the crew members to help us spit in it.  Kind of yucky, but you want to make sure things are done properly.  So after a big spit and rinse, they strapped on our vest and oxygen tanks.  The vest/tank and all were actually pretty heavy.

We were then instructed to climb down the ladder besides the boat.  The first step we had to clear our sinus by squeezing our nose and blowing out...we had to do it again the second step.  Also at the second step we had to do our two test.  At this point I felt a bit uneasy about using the regulator.  I felt like I was breathing much faster than I normally would, and every time I breathe out the bubbles felt like it was pushing my mask...even though it wasn't.  It was just a different feel.  I made it through the test and was ready to go diving.

I wasn't able to control my buoyancy very well.  I had trouble going up, down, straight.  Basically I held onto the instructor's hand the whole time to keep me with the group.  Stephanie was also having the same problem.  We saw the same fish as snorkeling, but it was a totally different experience being submerged in the water.  The one thing we saw that was really cool was Nemo!  Nemo was very cute and looks like the movie.  I was very excited.  After 10-15mins of being 7 meters below sea level, we were let back up.  The experience was awesome.  Although our instructor said he wouldn't call us natural divers, Connie and I are still totally inspired to get scuba licensed.  That will be my next trip!  That's after I save some money.

By the time we were done it was lunch time.  Lunch food wasn't all that great.  I think we're so spoiled by Natasha's aussie bbq that all other bbq we have doesn't compare.  But we still ate it because we were hungry.  Bernice and Steph wanted to do a helicopter ride to view the great barrier reef.  Unfortunately there weren't enough people to get a ride going.  Connie, Mel and I on the other hand wanted to do another dive for AUD45 ($29).  The instructor said that the Hastings reef was a lot better and chances of seeing more fish.  We were sold and totally up for it.

We first snorkeled through Hastings reef, and there were definitely more fish.  We saw huge schools of parrot fish.  Some even had cleaner fish on them.  Then I heard the whistle blow calling our group letter.  My goal for the second dive was to be free from the instructor and learn to swim underwater myself.  I did exactly that, but wasn't very good at it.  I learned that to sink I had to not move and let my body drop.  To swim, I need to move my flippers slowly and not use my hands.  I was not very quick getting anywhere, but I was free from the instructor holding me.  This dive was much better.  We were underwater for 30mins and saw two reef sharks, blue spotted stingray, more nemos, and a giant warse which I swam really close to.  It was AMAZING!  I want to dive more!

Mel accidentally kicked a coral while diving and a piece of it went in her second toe.  She just recently told us a story that a guy's back bumped into coral a while ago and he started to have acne on his back.  After closer examination, it wasn't acne on his back.  Instead it was coral.  Gross.  Mel was determined to get that piece out of her toe.  The tweezer provided her was too big.  She eventually had to use a pin from a badge to fish it out.  How lovely?

We were all pretty pooped after the dive and just rested before getting back to Cairns.  By this stage I'm really dark already so I sat inside with the ac talking to divers.  Supposedly to become an instructor it costs thousands of dollars and takes months.  But what an interesting life.  Also for the dudes out there, it's a great way to pick up chicks.  There was this American girl that was constantly asking the diver I was chatting with to go out with her to the bar because it was her last night.  Too bad she didn't realize he had a girlfriend for 16 months already.  The best part was she was trying to work two guys on the boat at the same time, both with girlfriends and knew each other.  Funny.

Back at Cairns we went back to our respective places to chill for a bit before dinner.  We decided bbq was probably not a good idea since we had a crap one for lunch two days in a row.  We were having Italian!  But first, Natasha, Mel, Connie and I were going to have a snack at the hotel and then chill by the pool.

Natasha was amazed how I was eating and it wasn't going to spoil my appetite.  I only had half a ham and cheese sandwich.   At the pool, Natasha and Connie played with a beach ball while Mel and I laid on our chairs chatting about life and relationships.  Natasha eventually came back, but Connie decided to practice floating.  In order to be a certified scuba diver, you need to be able to swim 200 meters and float for 10mins.  Not sure if I'm able to do either, but Connie was obviously more worried than me.

While I was waiting for the girls to shower, I fell asleep on the single couch.  I was so tired from being sleep deprived.  Eventually they woke me up to get ready too.  We met up with Steph and Bernice and went to have good old Italian for dinner.  Afterwards some got gelato for dessert and we all walked down the esplanade before too many mosquitoes were biting us.  At that point we called it a night.