Catching up

Hey there,

 

Well sorry I have not blogged for a while so I will put up some stuff now and hope that I don't forget anything.

 

Well I have done my first 2 days of scuba training - in the pool and in the classroom which was very exciting! not! It's not difficult, but some people are completely useless. Anyway we got through that lot successfully, only to be told that that due to the cyclone they have called the dive boats back and that the trip won't be going ahead on the next day - which is big problemo as I have booked a flight to Brisbane for the day after the trip was supposed to finish - pantalons! So after some juggling and more expense :-( I booked 2 more nights accommodation and managed to move my flight. So I am heading out for the diving on Saturday morning - being picked up at 6.15 erkkk! I thought this was supposed to be a relaxing holiday?!?!

 

So after heading out to the dive shop and collecting our stuff we headed on down to the boat and stowed our stuff there followed by a 3 hour journey to the first dive site. The shitty weather that we had been having has gone - hooray!!!!!!!!!!! Only problem now is to see if I have enough sun tan lotion! 30 degrees of lovely lovely sunnyness. So on the first day we do 2 more training dives which piss me off loads cos some people just shouldn't be allowed cos they are rubbish - and it holds the good people - like me ;-) up. Our instructor is Gonzo and not from the muppets but Gonzalo from Argentina! Also Scott is on our boat too which is cool as I can chat to him as he is doing his dive master training course.

 

So we do these couple of training dives which get some of the skills out of the way - we are not supposed to be looking at fish but we find this Napolean fish which is just HUGE and swims around us checking us out. Oh and when we are on the boat we see some turtles which are sweet as well.

 

Then in the evening the qualified divers head out for a night dive which looks pretty cool apart from for us on the boat who can see all the sharks circling around them! - We have that to look forward to on the next day. That night we just sat out on the top deck of the boat checking out the stars and the milky way and the Southern cross. It is unbelievably clear with almost no light pollution at all - just those irritating navigation lights which the skipper wouldn't turn off the mean ol' git!!

 

On the next day we have an even earlier start and are in the water for 6.30 as I have elected to do my Adventure diving qualification. That means that we do a deep dive and so we head on down to 26.5m and we check out a shark that is basking on the sand, but at that depth we can only stay for 14minutes which isn't much at all so after that we head on slowly back up having to do a decompression stop at 5m before finally surfacing then we have a long surface interval and get some sunbathing in as there is nothing nicer than just lying in the sun in the middle of the ocean - very relaxing indeed.

 

We then do some more dives and stuff and navigation thingys and I pass wooo! so then we get to go off by ourselves which is ace - definitley need to do more scuba diving. That night we do the night dive and as we are jumping in the skipper is throwing bread in and attracting the fish and the sharks - lol was ok though - very peaceful.

Then on Monday we have the 3 hour boatcruise back to Cairns, then time to have a decent shower then we all head out for a jolly old piss up where we do loads of shots and get very drunk! Up and checked out by 10 - dull then time to do the laundry and then here I am waiting to go to the airport for my flight to Brisbane. I will be heading to Fraiser island for 3 days from wednesday or thursday so I'm looking forward to that.

Anyway thats all for now as I'm sure I've bored you silly. I'll see if I can put some photos up too.