Last days in Sydney?

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This post came a bit late. I’ve been disconnected the past few weeks and didn’t really get to update the blog, so here it goes: Saturday 14^thof April, I had one of my best dives so far. I had been to this site before, but only with diving students; I’m referring to the wreck “HMAS Adelaide” in Terrigal. Adrian, a Rumanian I did the Scuba Instructor course with, recently started a small company to do boat dives. He bought a red inflatable boat that fits 5 divers and he’s been taking people out in different sites, especially Magic Point (main attraction being a cave with Grey Nurse Sharks, which I really wanted to do but couldn’t find the time) and the HMAS Adelaide. So, I paid Adrian to go on two boat dives that Saturday.

I woke up at around 5:30am, walked to a train station (Carlton) that’s about 20 minutes walking distance from the house and took a train to Hurtsville to meet with Peter Maclatchey, another diver, who gave me a ride to Terrigal. While I was waiting for Peter, I went to a coffee shop nearby (to get a cup of coffee of course) and started talking to an Asian girl who asked how my Easter Holidays had been. She couldn’t understand that I had spent the whole weekend diving – until I told her I was doing a scuba instructor internship. Anyway, a short while later, Peter arrived and we drove down to Terrigal. Peter is an accountant, has 3 kids and is an avid surfer and diver and is a good talker as well.



We arrived at the beach and Adrian was already there. We had two more divers going with us, Lucas (from Czech Republic) and Lucas (from Indonesia). All of them are experienced divers, which was really good. Incredibly enough, I was the one that had done more dives in the HMAS Adelaide, so I was asked to lead the dive, which was excellent, because I got to go wherever I wanted to. We tied the boat in the line that is directly on the bow of the ship. We descended to about a depth of 22 meters, went across the forecastle, down the missile silo, out from the portside and then continued along the outer corridor of the main deck. Then we ascended to the top of the hangar and made our way to the entrance of the portside hangar. We then entered the hangar and I went inside the ship for the last part of the dive. I saved this part for last because I knew that at least one of the divers was a bit anxious about going inside the wreck. This wreck was sunk specifically for diving, so it has entries /exit points everywhere, with plenty of light going inside. We toured a bit inside the ship and then made our way to the deck where the bridge is. Then back to the forecastle and up the rope tied to the bow. After we surfaced we had an hour on the boat (surface interval), in which we had something to eat and drink.



For the second dive we planned to be most of the dive inside the ship. Again, we made our way to the bow, went across the forecastle hovering at about 18 meters and then straight into the bridge. Most of us took the time to take photos sitting in the Captain’s chair there. Then, we went inside the ship from an opening on the deck, just behind the bridge and then went through the corridors of a deck situated about 23 meters. Everything has been taken out of the ship, including stairs, hatches and doors, so divers can swim around freely. We ended up in the starboard side hangar and then made our way back. By then I was reaching my no decompression limits, so instead of surfacing in the bow of the ship, I surfaced up the mast, right behind the bridge.



We surfaced about 30 meters from the boat and another person with a boat nearby took us to Adrian’s boat. Both dives were really good, and were totally what I expected. After we got to shore, we all grabbed something to eat; I had fish & chips (typical English and Australian plate) and then coffee and a couple of cookies to end the meal. Then, Peter took me back to the dive shop and the rest of the day, I mostly spent online looking for places to apply for jobs in diving.



I had the next day off. In the morning, I went to speak to Carl Fallon at the dive shop, to help me finish my diving resume and write an e-mail to an acquaintance of his in Cairns who works in a diving company. When I was done, I went to the Sydney Fish market to meet with Felipe and Isa (they also brought Bruno) for lunch. It’s pretty much like any Fish market; with lots of shops (and it has a liquor store as well). We all bought something; I got a mix seafood plate with chips, as well as Felipe and Isa bought oysters; we had our lunch with a bottle of white wine, sitting on synthetic grass outside the market, overlooking the fishing boats. There were a lot of people in the place we were sitting at, either in tables or just sitting in the floor. Bruno is taking his first steps and often wandered off, socializing with other people, having people take photos with him and Isa running behind him. After we finished lunch, we headed off to Darling Harbour, to have a beer at a place called "King St Brewery". In this place, there used to be a brewery called "James Squire Brewery", who's beleived to be the first Australian to brew beer in the country (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Squire). Then, we walked towards the central part of the “City Business Center” (CBD) and they went to do some shopping and I went back to the house. The next morning, I was assisting in an Open Water course, so I went through the program to get ready for it.



Monday morning, I got to the dive shop at around 7am and started helping the instructor I was assisting (Blake), getting everything ready before the students arrived. The students arrived at around 8am and we started doing the paperwork and then they had to do quizzes regarding the e-learning studies they had to complete prior to starting the course. There were five students: Phillip and Marie (step-father and daughter), Selina and Ian (married couple) and Ana (Chinese drummer). Besides Blake and I, there was also Jackie, part time instructor that went there because Ana is a close friend of his (they both studied music in Boston, both drummers in bands). The course was pretty standard; after the paperwork at the shop, we went to the pool to do all the skills there. It went pretty smooth, considering we were 3 instructors and only 5 students (Jackie was personally teaching Ana).The day was spectacular, nice and warm, perfect for getting in the pool. After all the skills were done, we had a light lunch (it’s always the same): soup and bread with peanut butter and/or vegemite (Australian paste made from yeast) and gummy snakes. We found out that Selina was a high school teacher / surfer and Ian an engineer with a PhD in fiber optics and who was now studying theology. From what I got, Phillip either owned some sort of company or worked in one, but he was hooked on the phone most of the time out of the water. Marie must’ve been finishing high school. After the pool session, we went to Oak Park, to do the first ocean dive. By now, Ana wasn’t feeling well, so she didn’t continue the course and we were left with four students. There’s not much to tell about this dive in particular and in general, it went well. In the afternoon, back at the house, I continued looking for places to apply for a job.



Tuesday morning was the second and last day of the course. After we spent some time at the dive shop, we went to Bare Island to do the 3 remaining dives. This day was horrible (weather-wise) and it was pouring rain, although it wasn’t a reason to cancel the dives. The eastern side of Bare Island was open to the currents and it had some pretty big waves. On the western side, however the water was fairly calm. During the first and second dive, Blake and I took turns teaching the different skills and they all went rather fast, having plenty of time to swim around with the students, after the skills had been completed. After the second dive, we had the usual lunch, but under a bridge because of the heavy rain. This day, we had two other people accompanying us: Tiana (Australian girl doing an instructor internship) and Craig Richards, an Australian with whom I had done lots of dives with and who was now getting his enriched air diver certification with me. After we were all done eating, Blake and I started playing silly games and getting the students involved as well (we had to do something since we had to wait a while to get in the water again for the final dive). The first one involved dropping plastic cups inside other plastic cups. Then, we grabbed some grapes and started tossing them in the air and trying to catch them with the mouth. Then, I took out my knife and told everyone we would be performing some ninja skills. Blake threw a grape at me; I took a swing at it with the knife and sliced the grape perfectly in half in mid-air. As the two pieces of the grape fell on the ground, everyone stopped talking; I must modestly say that it was amazing. After that we all took a photo with the grape sliced in half and I became an “instant legend”. Of course, we told the students we did that all the time. After that fine display of entertainment, we got in the water for the third and final dive. Nothing much to tell about this one and, when we got out of the water, it started raining harder than before, so we quickly got out of the water, got changed and went back to the shop. We finished the paperwork and everyone went home. Marie was especially happy about finishing her course and hugged everyone goodbye. I’ve got to say that this has been by far the best course I helped teach at Abyss, it was great. This day, I also finished certifying 25 people, so I could now apply to the next instructor rating which is Master Scuba Diver Trainer (MSDT), for which you have to certify at least 25 people in any course and have at least 5 specialty instructor ratings, so basically with this, I finally finished my internship. At night, I went to buy a pizza for dinner and watched a movie with the other people in the intern house.



Wednesday I had the day off, because the next day I was flying to Cairns to work as a volunteer in a boat called the “Spoilsport”, part of Mike Ball expeditions (all part of the instructor program with Abyss). I had a few things to do before going to Cairns, like to going to the dive shop to get my MSDT application and the details of the flights. After that, I went to the city because I had to buy Crocks (plastic shoes), that are a requirement on board the boat, I had to buy a new phone (got the cheapest one) and I had to go to the Kovacic’s house to leave a bag with some things that I’m not going to be using and that I’m going to send to Chile. After that was all done, I went back to the intern house to finish packing and get 4 hours of sleep.

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Photos

Sydney Fish market
Felipe, Isa y Bruno

Comments

[Andres]

last days in sidney?
Daniel Que bueno saber de ti y que todo sigue bien. Aca estamos todos muy bien y sin novedad. Terminamos la cosecha de la uva y seguimos en la segunda parte de la vendimia que es hacer las fermentaciones alcoholicas que deberia terminar en 1 mes mas. todos te mandan cariños, un abrazo Andres