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Published: December 3rd 2006
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Turtle encounter
Photo by Renaldo - reused with permission One of the challenges we set ourselves for this trip was learning to SCUBA dive. It seemed like the best way to see the Great Barrier Reef too, so we signed up for the SSI certification course with Cairns Dive Centre. Two days of pool and theory, followed by two nights liveaboard on the Kangaroo Explorer at various dive sites on the reef, including a maximum of nine dives. Not bad.
It was hard work at first. The most intellectually challenging thing we've had to do for a while is reading between the lines in the guide book. But here we were, up at 7 a.m. text books at the ready and an exam to pass after a day and a half of study. There's a lot to take on board, but we got the hang of the theory. The practical was slightly more comical. We both managed to get stupidly sun burnt the day before the course started by laying out at the pool in Cairns. Hefting all that SCUBA equipment on and off without a wetsuit for the pool training was sheer agony.
The training moved pretty quickly. We had no idea how we were going to
cope out in the open sea, but passed our exams with flying colours and couldn't wait to see all the beautiful fish. We were functioning on adrenaline for most of the trip. We joined our boat on the third day and were again fairly daunted. Everybody seemed to know what they were doing, but in reality, most of the divers already there were going through training just like us. The dive deck was bustling with people in various states of dampness and undress. There was a strict timetable to stick to and rigorous signing in and out procedures. Of course, all of this was explained to us properly, and we were soon being kitted out and assigned our tanks and the rest of our equipment. Before we knew it we were in the water for a trial snorkel to get used to things.
The reef was simply stunning. Nothing had quite prepared us for that first view through the turquoise water from behind the mask. Fish of all shapes, sizes and colours, in groups or alone, all going about their business. I didn't want to get out of the water. The snorkelling was more than enough fun. But pretty
Beautiful reef
Photo by Renaldo - reused with permission soon, we had the tanks on and were taking that first giant stride out into the water ready for submersion.
I can't say we were perfect naturals. We were very wary of flapping our fins around and damaging anything and rather ungainly in the water compared to the languid movements of the experienced divers. We made rather a lot of bubbles. But we started to relax, the more we were in the water. We were up at 5a.m. every day for a dawn dive, then another straight after breakfast and several more before the end of the day. The routine was pretty intensive. I got very seasick on our second day, but felt much better after hurling vigorously three times and didn't suffer again for the rest of the trip.
Our training dives involved performing certain tasks, like clearing your mask and removing and replacing equipment in the water. But after that, it was all about the fish. We held a huge pineapple sea slug, saw many many hundreds of beautiful, cautious, inquisitive and comical fish. Saw giant clams, rays, sharks and exquisite corals and then, on our qualification dive, had some close encounters with turtles. The absolute
highlight of the whole thing. Apparently turtles spend hours rasping their shells clean under the water, so rather like it when friendly divers come along and give them a good back scratch. We were hesitant at first, but our instructor showed us and soon had the turtles wriggling in delight as we scratched their shells. The Kangaroo Explorer's resident photographer and film maker, Renaldo, was there to capture us passing our training and make us do all sorts of daft things underwater on camera. Coming soon to a small screen near you. He also took the fab photos of marine life used here. Thanks Renaldo.
There was much jubilation once we passed our course. This soon turned into blind terror as we realised we were on our own. Our first dive without the instructor was pretty rubbish. We were terrified of getting lost. Navigation seemed to be impossible under water, with so many pretty things to look at and no corners or straight lines, we ended up nowhere near the boat when we came up. Graham got through his air pretty quickly with his big man lungs so had to be assigned a large tank to make it worthwhile.
Leopard shark
very rare to see one of these where we were, apparently We started to relax a little bit, but were still more anxious than anything. We decided to make use of the extra dives we were allowed on the boat and take the next qualification up, which meant we did a deep dive - down to 30ft, a night dive and a navigation exercise. The deep dive was awesome. Below a certain depth, nitrogen narcosis can set in and cause drunken behaviour. While we didn't suffer, I certainly felt more relaxed than usual and thoroughly enjoyed the experience of diving head first down a wall of coral. We were lucky enough to see a leopard shark at the bottom too. The night dive wasn't much fun. I think you need to be very relaxed for that. We all stayed too close together and didn't get much out of it. I also got stung on my ankle by something. Nothing serious, but it didn't help with the anxiety levels. But the rest of the dives went well and all revealed more of the beautiful reef and its inhabitants.
It was hard work, tiring and stressful at times, but an amazing experience to get so close to the marine life. We can't
wait to go again.
We still had a few days left in Cairns before flying out, so hopped on a tour bus up to Cape Tribulation, tropical north Queensland, croc country. We stayed in a lovely rainforest cabin and had a thoroughly relaxing few days. We were very aware of the wildlife of course. There's no escaping it in this part of the world. The sea was out of bounds - too warm to cool you off and stinger season had started. The alternative was to walk upstream to a natural water swimming hole. It was a tough walk and the locals assured us that crocs don't bother coming up that far. Too much trouble. There is nothing quite as refreshing as a dip in pure rainwater, but we had our eyes peeled and fortunately, there were no crocs on the loose. We survived all the biting, stinging, poisonous things Australia has to offer after all.
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