A New World Tour to explore!!

Breathing underwater, weightless, surrounded by beautiful coral and sea life on the Great Barrier Reef is absolute magic. I am still in partial disbelief that we are actually PADI certified open water scuba divers!

The 4-day certification class was the way to go. We began on Tuesday morning, the day after Mom Drolet left us, with a pick-up from our hostel, Travellers Oasis, in Cairns with delivery to the Deep Sea Divers Den. We had fussed and wondered which program to go with the week prior. It was like being in Vegas and deciding what casino to go to - there were so many options!! DSDD was referred to us by our fabulous front desk guy at our hostel, John and after deciding to go PADI vs SSI the price was right and we were good to go!

The morning was filled with videos, instruction and quizzes. A medical check was required to make sure we could pop our ears, balance, have proper lung capacity and a general health check. All was good. The sinuses are beautifully clear these days = no pollution! The afternoon was spent in the pool applying the skills we learned in class. Nine of us total in the class, 3 from Spain, 1 Swiss and 3 Australians and our instructor Ollie from London. Per usual we were the only Americans! We were stoked to get into the pool strapped in with all our gear - we're doing it!! We were geeked up, I was asking questions, trying to soak up as much info about air density, regulators, BCDs and the lot. Day two was more of the same and strangely, it was enjoyable to be back in the classroom again. Students sleeping in class from partying too hard the night before and Team Spain who could hardly understand a word of English, which had to be tough for them, but was a little frustrating for us and Ollie! Despite being a strong-willed instructor (which was great!), Ollie was a good salesman. Once he saw us eyeing the masks he was by our side offering thoughts and assistance. Of course, I was hooked and reeled in, althewhile Stacy trying to do us right saying maybe we'll wait, check out another shop - but it didn't work. With the 10% discount and the fact we had tried the masks on in the pool here, we were pulling out the plastic to invest in our futures, why not, right?! We need a good mask and snorkel if we want to pursue this new hobby of ours. F-it!1 Why not. Stacy had her new clear/blue mask and I had my clear/black mask and snorkel! We were at least looking good!

Day three we headed out to the Norman & Saxon Reefs via Sea Quest. This boat was a catch all for snorkelers, certified divers and our class of 9 just learning to dive. By now, we had mastered the equipment set-up and by 10am had taken our first Giant Stride into the Great Barrier Reef!!! Where was my sniper rifle? I felt like a Navy Seal looking for Goldfinger! We took it slow and steady, did some basic skill tests like descending and equalizing and took a knee in the sand below the boat at about 12M. We took a swim and for the first time we were flying! At least it felt like we were gliding like you see birds do over buildings. We filled our BCDs just a touch to get a little bit of buoyancy and used our breath, inhales and exhales to control ourselves. It really was marvelous to implement the lessons we had learned! Inhale slowly to ascend a little, exhale to drop down a little toward the coral - but NEVER, hold your breathe (#1 Rule!). More of the same on dive 2, testing a few other skills. Then around 2:30pm we were transferred to the liveaboard boat, Ocean Quest where we would spend the next 24 hours getting certified and marveling at the Reef.

Our room was sweet! A corner spot on the first level, multiple windows, double bed, bathroom & TV!!! There were about 60 people on board, passengers & crew together, but it didn't feel tight at all until the load speaker beeped and announced that the dive orientation would be taking place on the sundeck, Time to dive!! Dozens of us clamoured for wetsuits and to learn about the reef we would be experiencing - Coral Gardens, Playground... One of the instructors, a Japanese guy named Masa, would draw an elevation and topographical rendering of the reef on the dry
erase board - what to see, where to go. Very cool! Unfortunately, as the Newbies on board we would not be doing any more diving until tomorrow morning, but the others, a mix of marine biologists (from the US of A), 2nd day Open water divers & other certified divers were off enjoying themselves. We were jealous, but enjoying the sunny sun deck nevertheless. Could be worse right?! I chatted with some recently certified fellas that were flying high! An American Air Force man from Barstow, a nice bloke from Dublin and another fine fellow were amped about their upcoming Night dive with the sharks and the feeding frenzy that takes place around the darkened reef. As the JV team, we got to watch - with wetsuits on our backs and our new investments strapped to our grills we were allowed to lay flat on our stomachs on the submerged dive deck and peer at the fish and reef sharks circling the water behind the boat. Team Spain laid to our right and Ollie was tossing bread right near them so the fish were like kamikazes darting all around!! Nice.

We spent the eve out on the 3rd deck marveling at the ship's band; Captain on the drum kit, Chef, Ollie and our friend from Barstow on the guitars. They were rippin' it! There were about 20 of us on the watch bouncing with their rhythm. As an encore, Jan, the #1 instructor on the boat broke out his didgeredoo for a continuous 10 minute performance that BLEW us all away!!! WOW!

KNOCK KNOCK!! Is it 5:50am already!?! Our third certification dive came at dawn the next morning, with bogies in our eyes and hopefully an awakening reef deep below. For this dive, Ollie took Stace and I out with Ben & Ben from Perth onto the dive platform and informed us we'd be doing the James Bond Entry. Wha wha!?! I didn't remember that in the videos. As you might expect, it was a full (maybe 3/4) front flip into the water. Hell yeah!! I know we're addicted now!! We swam a lot more this dive with a smattering of skills like a mask fill and neutral buoyancy practice. It was great to glide around, hovering inches above Nemo and his family's anemone, to observe poisonous fire fish around the mooring blocks & especially to learn about how to maneuver nearly 18M below the surface!!

Dive #4 was back to a normal giant stride entry, booorrringgg. Not really. The whole group of us this time were together, descending, navigating with a wrist compass and mastering our skills. This would be our last dive! We were going to be on our own if we got through this one. It was cramped out there though! Classmates all around. We were like sardines. We couldn't go down as deep as the first morning dive - you learn in class that you monitor your depth and dive time by managing your surface intervals (rest time on the boat) & Nitrogen levels. We bottomed out at 15M this time, which was great! Upon ascending and boarding the boat, I was sending High 5s all around! We've done it team!!! PADI Open Water Certifiable!!!! Yeah!

After the Captain moved the boat to a new reef location and we were educated on how to fill out our dive logs correctly, it was time for Dive #5 - our fun dive with buddy only!! We were debriefed on our depth and air limits and told about the topography of the reef. Then it was go time! We snorkeled to the front of the boat and descended there. The reef was shallow so maxing out our depth at 14.5M was no problem at all in fact we were between 7-3M most of the time. Stacy and I meandered through the coral, past the endangered Barramundi Cod, a few Nemo houses and so much more - too much to recount, really. But, as my air was at about half, I began to disobey an important rule of diving; never leave your buddy!! I felt like it was time to head back, albeit in control, but Stacy and I were missing each other. I swam ahead maybe 8M, still observing the coral, but anxious to ascend with more air than we were told to come back with (>50 bar). At the time, I felt she was lollygagging, looking at fish and taking her time. But in retrospect, after a discussion afterwards (discussion, I use loosely ;) I realized I was in error all the way. She was keeping her breathing slow and steady, while I, with an increased kick pace probably was using it up faster. We argued afterwards, she was upset I had swam ahead and I knew I blew it. I told her sorry and that for sure I'd learned my lesson for our next dive, whenever that would be (Bali!?!). Except for the last 8 minutes of the dive, it was spectacular down there!! We were on our own and more or less doing great!! It felt a little like the after effects of our bungy jump in NZ - totally invigorated!!

We begrudgingly had to transfer over to the day board to head back to Cairns. our trip was nearly over :( Our friends from class however, had one more day to go and were gettigng excited about their night dive coming up. Boohoo, sucks for us! oh well, more diving to come soon in SE Asia. We headed back in the choppy seas and got into port around 5pm Friday. We were wiped out. Its funny how much energy is burned diving, even though we were just gliding around down there. We got a ride back to our hostel and rest mode ensued. We had about 24 hrs left in Cairns before flying to Sydney and no plans!!

More on the town:
Cairns is backpacker central. Travellers Oasis is about a 10 - 15 minute walk from the city center and is a quaint, tropical and relatively quiet setting with a pool and a very friendly manager named John. The first night we arrived our hostel put on an Aussie BBQ complete with kangaroo, emu, crocodile, makarel and mystery meat sausage. The kangaroo and emu sort of tasted like beef and croc was more like chicken. It was a fun, very Oz experience but I don't need to eat them again. We chatted with other travellers over dinner and VL's (Victorian Lager) and next up the Didgeridoo Competition. By the way, beer is pricey here - about $12 - 15 for a 6 pack. My (Stacy) name was drawn with 2 others and I won by the sound of applause! I have my high school days to thank for that talent. The prize was a Traveller's Oasis t-shirt that I got in a size large for Andy. I actually had to stay on stage for a while longer and try and circular breathe and make kangaroo noises but hell I wasn't that good. That was a memorable night.

We spent our last day in Cairns enjoying the tropical breeze in the downtown area. On the Esplanade near the harbor a live Australian band was playing outdoors in commemoration of 150 years of Australian football. The three guitarists rocked out with positive vibes about how simple and beautiful life can be as we were sitting on the green grass in Northern Queensland. I stretched my arms and let the warm sun hit my chest. I couldn't help but smile.