Following the Dream

Christian November 12th, 2008

   After a short 3 hour plane ride from Sydney, we were welcomed with a warm sunny day in Cairns.  It was suprisingly easy to get in from the airport.  Thirty minutes and fifteen dollars later, the both of us were checking into our hostel.  Complete with a swimming pool, air conditioning, guest kitchen, and a helpful staff, the place ended up being quite nice.  We dropped our bags and set off to explore the city.  It is considered a city, even though it is the size of a town.  It is touristy, but very nice.  It seems that everything in the place stems from the Espalande, the road along the ocean.  The beach was not idealic, but they did have a free lagoon (large swimming pool) that was extremely nice.  Cairns is lined with many shops, tourist agencies, and restaurants (enough to satisfy all of the tourists).  We stopped by the Pro Dive shop to check in for our dive the next day.  We were set up with gear within minutes.  Instead of trying anything on, the german accented woman simply sized us up by looking at us.  She was confident in her sizing ability, saying how she often sizes people up for scuba gear when she sees them walking down the street.  We would soon find out that she was over confident in her sizing ability, and that the method was not the best for fitting people for scuba gear that they would be wearing for the next three days.  I rented a camera for this trip.  I have never used an underwater camera while diving before so I am thinking that the pictures might be a bit interesting.  I almost had a heart attack when they said that they needed an $1100 deposit for the camera (even though they were selling the same ones for $350).  I put it down, and hoped for the best.  It just seems that the likelyhood of something happening is pretty good, I mean I am taking a digital camera underwater, sometimes to 75 feet.
      After we checked into the dive shop we headed up to the park by the lagoon.  It was such a nice day out, warm unlike the cool days that Sydney was experiencing.  The park was extremely relaxing.  We took up a spot near the ocean, and people watched for a bit.  There were people sitting all over the grass enjoying the beautiful day, some eating lunch, others just enjoying the breeze from the sea.  There was also an asphalt trail that went around the park, here there were many people out running, walking their dogs, or rollerblading.  Having this kind of day reminds us how good it is to be traveling.  Right now there is no stress, no overdue projects at work, no need for a cell phone, and having the time to just sit outside on a beautiful day just enjoying it whenever we feel the urge.  It might be tough to go back to Philadelphia in the cold of winter, but for now all that we are worried about is just enjoying the moment.  We made it to the grocery store before they closed to grab some things for dinner.  It has been a while that we had to cook for ourselves in a hostel, and we forgot how nice it is.  A month out of the hostel life really makes you appreciate it, trying to find space on the crowded stovetop, bumping into people, finding treasures in the free food bin, these are things that are familiar to us now.  These are the things that we did not realize that we would miss about hostel life.  Not to mention meeting new people.  After our dinner of rice and chicken, we went back to our room to watch some of the show Scrubs that we have on our computer.
     The next morning was an early start at 6:40am, when the dive shuttle picked us up to take us to check into the dive shop.  We checked in, stored one of our bags and were wisked away once again by the Pro Dive Shuttles.  This time it was to the boat.  The boat was pretty nice, but did seemed a little cramped with 32 divers.  We were given a standard safety speech, and were on our way to the outer great barrier reef.  The boat ride out was a bit rough, with a few people getting very seasick.  Luckily, I took some dramamine before we set off and I was not one of the green faced people puking over the side of the ship.  There would be 11 dives over the course of three days.  The first day we would dive four times, the second four times, and the third three times.  Once we made it to the reef, the water calmed and they served some lunch for us.  There were many people that did not feel up to eating quite yet.  After lunch we were given the rest of our gear to dive and headed upstairs for the dive briefing.  They let us know that there would be a guide if we wanted it, but forwarned us that with the guide would be 8 open water students all of their first open water dive.  We elected to not go with a guide and listened to the dive plan.  Once the briefing was over, we headed downstairs to get ready to dive in. 

This was when we realized that the woman at the dive shop had no clue what she was doing.  The first thing was our wetsuits.  Both Casey and I struggled to no end to get the suits on.  After fifteen minutes of wrestling with them, we had them on.  We barely could move, with circulation being cut off from various extremities.  The funny part was that there were considerably smaller people in the same size or larger wetsuits than what we were given.  We asked to trade them in, but they did not seem to have any extras on hand.  I then attempted to put my BCD on.  The velcro straps that go around your midsection to hold it on did not quite fit around me and the velcro part was missing.  At least they gave me another one after the first dive.  The first dive, we were conservative in venturing out too far, since our navigation skills are far from good.  We saw some pretty cool coral and fish, but missed some of the key elements we were supposed to see in the dive.  On the plus side, we were able to find the boat from underwater.  The second dive was a completely different story.  We decided to be a little braver and venture further out to see some of the features.  We saw most of what we were supposed to (we think), but when we surfaced we were really far from the boat (at least a football field away).  We started the long surface swim back, waves smacking us in the face, the sun beating down on us, when to our relief a dingy from our boat came over and told us that they were picking up all of the people that ended up far from the boat and that we were third in line.  After a few minutes, the trip leader Scott (from Scotland) made his way to us.  We thought that the pickup meant we would climb in the dingy and go back to the boat.  By pickup, he meant that we were to grab the rope off of the back of the dingy and get pulled through the water.  It actually turned out to be super fun.  The ride back to the boat felt like we were doing 30 mph, I could barely hang on.  The propeller was spinning full speed ahead of me, pushing a stream of bubbly water onto me.  If I accidently let go, I am sure Casey would have had some choice words with me.  Especially since she was hanging onto the rope behind me and I would have taken her out with my air tank.  Slipping a bit at the end, I managed to hang on. 

Back on the boat we were able to relax a bit before our next dive.  We saw a couple of sting rays and a huge mushroom shaped piece of coral.  It was a good day already, three dives before dinner.  Though my feet were telling me otherwise, blisters starting to form in three places.  Back on the boat we ate some dinner and rested for a bit before being briefed on the night dive.  Casey decided not to do the night dive since in was very cold, so I was buddied up with a guy named Roy.  We had a guide for the night dive, which was good.  It was my second night dive, and one fact remains, the ocean is a creepy cool place to be at night.    We did not see to much on that night dive.  The highlight for me was a few shrimp.  After the dive, I was very tired and headed to bed.

     The second day we were able to sleep in a bit, until about 6:45.  As soon as everyone was up we had another dive briefing for our pre breakfast dive.  It is a strange feeling diving down 60 feet in the water when you just wake up.  The rest of the day followed the same course.  It was to eat, dive, eat, dive.  After dinner, I was anxious for the night dive (the fourth dive of the day).  The dive coordinators on the boat promised us lots of sharks.  Casey decided to forgo this night dive as well, so it was my group ended up being a group of five people.  As we were getting ready to go into the water, the dive coordinators started thowing food into the water, attracting a ton of fish.  This is turn started to attract a couple of sharks that feed on those fish.  We could see the sharks circling the fish right where we were to jump in the water.  Upon jumping in the dark water, I was greeted by a five foot reef shark swimming by me, lit up by only my hand torch.  It was a little eeire.  Once the whole group was in the water we decended down and begun the dive.  One of the first things that we saw was a huge rock lobster.  It scurried about under our flashlights.  As we continued on, I would shine my light into the darkness trying to spot another shark looming in the distance.  Somewhere along the way we lost one of our group members.  At night this is surprisingly easy to do, especially when there is 25 people from the same boat in the water.  I am pretty sure he had stopped to take a photo when our group continued on not knowing he had stopped.  When we realized he was missing, we looked around for a minute, then went to the surface to look for him.  No dice.  We decided to head to the boat, just to be on the safe side.  Along the way I managed to spot a lionfish hiding up under a piece of the reef.  I tried to get my group’s attention to check it out, but by the time I did I could not find him anymore.  As we got closer to the boat, I saw more and more sharks swimming around us.  All in all I must have seen at least five or six.  That was an experience I will not soon forget.  Casey said that as I was waiting to get out of the water one was circling me.  Once back on the boat it was time to get a nice hot shower and some rest.  The diver from my group did end up with another group, we were happy to find out.

 
     The next morning we had a 6AM dive followed by breakfast, and two more dives before we left.  We did our last two dives in a place named Coral Gardens.  This was the best reef we have seen yet on the trip.  It was enormous, colorful, and filled with life.  I would say that the last two dives of the day may have been my favorite of the trip.  Casey was feeling a bit tired and stayed out of the last dive, but later regretted it when I told her about it.  The last dive was a very relaxing shallow dive.  The dive plan was simply to find a nice sandy patch of sand and sit on it.  As you sit on it, tons of fish began to check you out and see what you were.  It was a really good way to end the diving.  Once back on the boat, we packed up, filled out the survey, and headed back to Cairns.  That night, we walked around the town for a while, looking in the shops.  We ended up buying a few post cards and finding the lockers by the bus termial to store our bags the next day.  We did not feel the urge to cook, so we ate at a place named Fasta Pasta. It turned out to be pretty good and not too expensive.  The next day we had to check out early and had until midnight to kill before our bus left.  Our hostel did allow us to hang around and use their facilities for the day.  We ended up going to the mall, seeing two movies at the movie theater, getting hair cuts, and a bunch of other things to pass the time by.  It actually turned out to be a really nice relaxing day.  We boarded our bus at midnight which left for Airle Beach, where we would spend three days relaxing on a sail boat.  We really loved diving on the Great Barrier Reef.  There is no doubt about it, a live aboard dive boat is intense.  Finishing the three days with 11 dives, and Casey with 8, we were both tired.  We met a bunch of great people on the boat and are excited to return one day to dive the Northern Great Barrier Reef. 

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