Feb 2007

Hey everyone!

WOW - what an amazing few days...i'm going to try and do it justice in my writing...here goes:

My second day at dive school was just as good as the first one. We had less time in the classroom (although we did have an exam [only got 1 wrong out of 50 ] ) and more time in the swimming pool, learning basic first aid and emergency ascents (for when you run out of air!). In the evening, i went to a talk called 'Reef Teach' where i learnt loads about the coral and the different types of fish i would be seeing under the water. This was so useful as i could actually distinguish the different fish when i was out on the reef!

I'm going to give you some background on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR):

The GBR is of such pristine condition that it was listed by the World Heritage Trust as a protected site in 1981, and it is the largest structure on Earth made by living organisms.. Visitors in their thousands come to visit the reef every year. The GBR is the largest of the worlds 552 World Heritage Areas, covering 347,000km, and there are more than 2800 catalogued reefs in the area. It has the world's largest collection of coral reefs, some 3,400 types of coral, 1500 species of fish and 4000 types of mollusc. Most of the reef is around 2 million years old, with the oldest sections dating as far back at 18 million years old.

Now that you understand the sheer size and magnitude of the reef, let me get on to describing my 3 days in the middle of it.

It was an early start on day 3 of the course (day 1 on the reef). At 7am the Dive Company (CDC) picked me up to take us all out to the boat. It was a 2 hour journey out to the liveabord vessel, and omg, it was rough. The crew said it was the roughest conditions they had ever gone out in (waves were 3 metres high)..this was not so great for my confidence as i am not a boat lover at the best of times! Why was the watter so choppy you ask? Well, if you ahve been following Australian weather, you will know that there are currently 2 cyclones off the coast of Cairns. Cyclones are basically huge winds that travel in a clockwise direction and have a gale force of over 90 mph. Sooooooo, the conditions were not great, but when you are diving under teh water you are not really afected by the current, so we braved the conditions and set out to teh liveaboard vessel which was going to be our home for the next 2 nights and 3 days.

We arrived at the liveabord vessel - The Kangaroo Explorer and settled in. Dosed up on seasickness tablets i was ready for dive no.1.

The first dive was really scary. We were being led into it gently and the first time we were allowed to descend by a rope, rather than freely descending down to the ocean floor. I panicked a wee bit when i went down as my mask started to fill up with water and i felt like i wasnt sinking. After surfacing for a minute, clearing out my mask, adding an extra weight to my body, i was ready to go down. Luckily, my buddy for dive no.1 was one of the instructors so he calmed me down very quickly. We did some skills under water, for example, letting our masks fill up with water and then clearing them out; demonstrating the need for air etc. Its such a weird sensation and words do not really convey the feeling. Exhilaration and excitment come close, sensory overload almost nails it. But actually doing it is the only way you'll ever know what it is to be 18 metres deep under the water surrounded by so much natural beauty. It is all new: listening to the rythem of my breathing, the gurgle of bubbles as they rise to the surface, watching the fish glide by, small iridescent onese darting in and out of crevises, clams opening and closing etc. Even my stinger suit and heavy weight belt of 7kg, tank on my back and mask firmly suctioned to me face take some getting used to. And having to wait until i surface after 35 scarily quick minutes to let out the 'WOW!" thats been dying to escape is sweet torture. The best part of the dive? Knowing that i have 8 more to go...

The second dive was 100 times better than the first because i was more confident and was therefore looking out for more fish and coral at the bottom rather than just concentrating on my equiptment. We did one more dive on this day which was just as good as the 2 previous dives. After the 3rd dive we were all pretty exhausted so ate dinner and climed into bed at around 8pm.

Day 2 on board:

It was a rough night. Once a month the vessel gets brought back into Cairns for 'refuel' where a whole month worth of supplies are brought onto the ship. However, with the awful weather, this meant a 4 hour journey abck to cairns through tropical storms, and then another 4 hour journey back out to the reef in the same awful conditions. Everyone was feeling really quesy in the morning and its a night i'm hoping to forget quickly. Having survived that night, i know i can survive any boat journey now! We were in teh water for our first dive at 8am and all thoughts of biterness about the awful conditions and the disturbed nights sleep evaporated once we were underwater and the magic of diving took over. This dive was our final dive before we were to become certified scuba divers. We descended without a rope, and by this time by buoyancy was getting quite good (being able to float at a certain point in the water). You have to really careful to go down slowly so you dont get decompression sickness and you have to continuously equalise your ears (kind of like when you are in a place and about to land and your ears start to hurt). We went down to 18 metres again..the deepest i am allowed to dive at, and we did our final skills. The videographer came down with us and filmed our dive (yes, i have bought the dvd and you will all be made to watch it when i come home!) and we did tricks like taking off our mask and putting on sunglasses, or taking out our regulator and pretending to take a swig from a can of beer! Was a lot of fun and saw some amazing coral.
We did 2 more dives during the day, and now that we were certified, we no longer had to go with our instructors or teh rest of the group. I teamed up with David and we got ready for our first dive, just the two of us. Going down was really scary but exhilirating at the same time. We made sure that we knew our hand signals perfectly as that is the only way to communicate underwater and our dive lasted about 30 minutes. We swam with a turtle which was amazing! When our air was getting close to the end we started our ascent without the aid of a rope (you also have to remember to stay at 5metres below sea level for 3 mins as a saftey stop) and we arrived back on the surface, about a 5 minute swim from teh boat, because the current had made us drift really far.

Our third dive of the day was not as good as the previous 2, because visibility was starting to worsen, but i took an underwater camera down with me and tried to get some pics.

Our night dive was cancelled due to stormy weather so we just went to bed really early.

Day 3:

We woke up to be told that the cyclones were gtting nearer to Cairns and that no boat was coming to pick us up and take us back, and that only one dive was scheduled for the day because of the conditions, and they had to be guided dives (i.e. we couldn't go down with just our buddy). I was not willing to accept staying on that boat for another rough night, especially if we were not going to be able to dive, so after numerous talks with the skipper (who is one of teh msot horrible people i have met - kept making the crew cry) he eventually managed to get a boat out to pick us up. We never go to dive on the 3rd day, which meant i only got to do 6 dives, but i was happy to get onto dry land.

It was a quiet night last night at the cinema seeing DreamGirls before heading to bed at around 9pm absolutely exhausted but exhilirated!

Tomorrow i am heading up to Port Douglas and Cape Tribulation (the rainforests) and i am hoping to fit in another dive whilst up there, because the GBR extends as far north as where i am going.

Till next time
Danielle xxxxxxxxxx

Hey everyone!

On Friday i spent a lovely day by the lagoon sunbathing and cementing my tan, and then just had a chilled out night with Kate in the hostel, watching White Chicks and eating home made spag bol - yum!

Saturday it rained AGAIN so i just wandered around the shops in Cairns and got myself organised for diving (i.e. buying sea-sickness tablets and more factor 30 suncream - the sun is crazily strong here!). At night, me gemma, rich, kate, and 2 new friends i picked up at teh hostel (paul (oz) and heather (usa)) went to the cinema to see Deja vu - what a treat to go to the movies...haven't been since i was in glasgow so thouraghly enjoyed that!

Today (sunday) i was up at the crack of dawn to be picked up by Cairns Dive School for my first day of training in my quest to becoming a certified scuba diver. The day was split in 2: the morning was spent in a classrom where we had to watch videos about diving, the safety measures to take and all about the equiptment, and then the real fun began when we got into the 4 metre deep pool.

Here's your scuba lesson for the day:

You need to put weight belts around you so that you dont float on the surface of the water, and so that you can actually dive. Apparantly, i'm very buoyant so i needed to put about 4 kilo's of weight on me to make myself sink, compared to the 1 kilo everyone else in my group needed - great! I thought i was going to be on the surface forever, but we finally got the right weights for me. Once you have the weight belt on, and the BC (basically a big life jacket thing that u can control how inflated it gets), your compressed air on your back, fins and mask, you are good to go.

Going underwater was amazing...you feel as if you are flying and you get such a buzz from it (or mabye that was the nitrogen :S). We learnt how to help your 'buddy' if they are in trouble, and vice versa; how to breathe properly underwater; how to descend and ascent without getting ill etc etc etc.

Anyway, sitting in the internet cafe after completing my homework (yes, we have questions and answer sheets to fill out - its not all fun and games this travelling malarky!), i'm feeling a bit fragile - think i may have decompression sickness (although all you who know me well probs are just shaking their heads in amusement - i know i am a hypochondriac, but still............). I'll mention it to the instructors tomorrow and hopefully they will dismiss just as quickly as you readers are!

Anyway, i am very tired tonight, so its going to be an earlish one as I am being picked up by the dive school again at 7am tomorrow. Going to go for dinner with Kate somewhere and then just going to chill out with rich and gemma at their hostel for a few hours before heading to bed.

Next time i'll update this blog i'll have been out on the Great Barrier Reef for 3 days - how cool!!!

Take care everyone

xxxxx