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Published: November 3rd 2005
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The full team
Graduation day! Hi fellow bolgees - a lots happened since the last entry at central YHA. I have moved to a cheaper hostel less central but a lot cheaper called serpeants hostel. Have met a wide variety of interesting people, many crazy so i seem to fit in. Decided that id had enough rest after Rob leaving so signed myself on a 4 day open water scuba course on the reef. With the deal i got it included a free upgrade to live onboard for a couple of nights with food and drink free! The first day was a bit intense racing through a lot of theory in the morning, then all afternoon in the pool. We managed to cover a load of skills - up to boyancy control, or not as the case may be!
Our class is of 16 to a few instructors so not too individualised but our main instructor - Chris was great so no problems! Also got assigned a buddy - Rob (surprisingly) from Sweden who unfortunately shares the same abnormal personality as i, sad eh.
Day 2 involved a medical in the morning/ fine tuning our theory learnt and plenty more pool time. In the afternoon we
sat the theory test which most of us managed to pass- then it was 6am pickup for the real thing!
Arose to another cairns morning (sunny as) and boarded a small boat to take us to the dive boat 2 hours away. Had a great meal on arrival and then it was time to put into practice what we had learnt. Wetsuit on - that would be a size 4 - not a size 3 that Rob managed to squeeze into which involved a lot of squeaking, sweating and pain!
weight belt on/ air sniff check- good its not nitrous oxide/ valve check/ BCD fitted to tank - thats the right way Rob/regs screwed on but not too tight!/ inflator cord connected/ air turned on/ SPG checked - 200 bar thatll do/ tank secure check/ BCD fitted/ inflated/ releases fastned/ Buddys turn! both ready - final checks- snorkel check spit in mask mmmmmmmmmmm/ fins on/ giant stride lets go!!!!!!!!!!!!! (incidently momments before this i found out that this is where the true story behind the film open water happened......nice!).
Dive 1. Thetford Reef - Descended via a rope which conveniantly had these stinging algae on/ eqalizing of ears
going well - no probs!/ all the skills wed done in the pool repeated - no worries apart from the sea water really gets up your nose when you take your mask off, practice makes perfect.
Good visibility 10 m- 15m
saw plenty of sea cucumbers (long story)
fish and coral ++ all in all a good dive but came up a bit quick.
Dive 2 Moore Reef - first free descent - weird but good - boyancy control much better now.
saw plenty of sea cucumbers oh and a huge sea turtle which we fed with some kind of kelp- very cool !
Huge wrasse/ starfish/ parrot fish/ rock fish/ Yes we did see Nemos!- anemoni (?spelling) fish. The truth with clown fish is that once the female dies, the largest male then becomes the female - The males are much smaller and are kept small by the female biting them to suppress there hormones weird eh. Would make for some freaky ass film though! Marlons the transvestite who keeps biting his son so that he wont turn into a women aswell! Clown fish can also be killed by anemonis from which they live but they become sensitised
Men are from mars
Women are from the planet septoomoodius which orbits around mars cleanin up the mess to them - if you were to seperate one and return it - it would then be killed! Sad ending to the movie aswell! Some fish mate for life and if one of them dies the other one does too. Most fish change colour - almost instantly from black to red to white for camaflauge.
The evening was spent getting to know the rest of the crew - playing ghames like men are from Mars women are from Venus, a funny night!
My room mate was called johannus from Germany- i challened him to a game to see who gets the double bed- little does he know theyd only be one winner!
After a great nights sleep on a comfy double bed we arose at 5.30 to dive again.
Dive 3 - Finalising our many new found skills underwater
water temp. 27 degrees
Free descent and learning emergency procedures - me and Rob managed to do an emergency ascent directly under the propeller - but thankfully steered away to safety - not that the boat was going!- A handy skill - always look up while ascending.
Dive 4 - Final dive! Final skills learnt and repeated! Posed
a bit for the dvd. Did a little dance and got down on the sea bed! We cellerbrated in style that night at the woolshed with a VIP balcony and free food and drink. (not to mention scuba initiation drink!)
Well that was it in short, im now a certified open water scuba diver. so ive freefalled at 15000 feet and dived to approx 18 m!
Today got purswaded to do a half day rainforrest swim/walk with optional jumps - a bit hairy but refreshing! (not bad for 20 dollars)
Well thats me up to date
Take care all
Dave
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Sniffer dog
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Air Purity
I note that you sniff the air before diving. Is this a good idea after big meals and fizzy drinks. Try to hold on until you have your wet suite on as extra buoyancy or propulsion can be obtained by judicial release. Perhaps this was what you meant when you said your buoyancy contol was improving. Its the old hovercraft principle.