We jumped back on the ferry to Townsville and jumped on the bus to Cairns, we arrived about 6pm and were picked up by the hostel bus. Brids voice is coming back a wee bit but it still sounds dodgy. We got some free tomato soup they were giving out and headed into town to the dive shop, we needed to pick up some manuals and give them sizes for stinger suits for tomorrow. We also met Brids mate Claire again who was in Cairns the day before us. We went for some food but we had to go back to the hostel to do our homework which we did nothing off.

Next day and we were up early to be picked up by the dive company, we drove to the shop to meet the rest of the folk before headed off to the boat. It seemed really nice and was better than I was expecting, we also had a double room for once. Our 3hour sail out to the reef was quite rough and trying to fill in the manuals in rough weather was fun, a think some of them puked but I'm not sure. We were getting 11 dives in total, 5 to complete our advanced course and another 6 play dives.

First dive of the day and we quickly realized some of the other people in our group didn't have a clue what they were doing, they guy next me couldn't even set up his gear, twat. Did sea anything amazing this dive just really getting used to it again as we hadn't been for ages.

We had lunch next and got speaking to some of the other folk on the boat before setting up for dive 2 of the day. This was our navigation dive which was just basically just using the compass and hopefully ending back at the boat, it's harder than it sounds. We managed this ok before having dinner, we did another dive later on at another spot were we would do our night dive later on.

We jumped into the water to do our night dive about 8pm and we could see the sharks swimming about beside the boat, they weren't massive, the biggest we saw was about 1metre but still big enough for me. Brid was crapping her pants as were most of the girls in our group, we had to stick together for our first night dive and it turned into a nightmare, no one would spread out so we were constantly getting bumped into by idiots. We were pretty tired when we made it back to the boat and didnt last long before we were in bed.

Next day and up at 7 for another dive, this dive was our deep dive where we could go down to 30metres, some people go a bit mental from the nitrogen at deeper depths so I was hoping for some funny stuff to happen, no one went mental but Brid did start laughing for no reason and wouldn't stop, on the way back the boat the instructor was attacked by a pretty big fish, it turned out to be a titan trigger fish and it left a decent bruise on his leg, we all thought it was pretty funny but the b***** would be back later to have ago at the rest of us.

Next dive was another play dive, we saw some bigger sharks and some giant turtles which we chased around for a while.

Next dive was our underwater photography dive so we rented a camera from the boat to do it, we saw some turtles again but no sharks, it was this dive when I was mauled by the bloody trigger fish, I was someone giving me the signal for triggerfish and then all of a sudden the thing was having a go at my head, The are really aggressive at certain times of the year. They get up to about 75cm and have hard beaks for mouths, it got in about 3 quick bites before I had any idea what was going on, I turned round to kick it and Brid (my hero) swam between me and the fish and booted it a couple of times, it chased us for a while before going back his nest. My head felt a bit sore but I didn't realize it was bleeding till we got back to the surface, it also took a bit out of a Danish woman and a German guy that dive as well.

Another night dive tonight and this time we could go away ourselves, we saw a ton of stuff but didn't see the massive giant turtle Brian that supposedly lives around here.

Knackered again we headed off to bed.

Next day and we were up at 6 for another dive, Brid accidentally went deeper than she should have on the first dive so she couldn't do the 2nd one, I went with a Danish couple who ended up with a ton more air than I had at the end. The current was really strong at the last couple of dive sites and allot of people were struggling to make it back to the boat. While I did the dive without Brid she went snorkeling and was stung on the lip by a jelly fish, luckily it was a bad one and it only stung for 20mins or so.

Our last dive we saw tons more turtles and stuff and it was probably one of the best dives we did, and there were no triggerfish which was good.

We headed back to Cairns while filling out our logs books and collecting all our stuff. We had all arranged to meet at a pub in town later on for some grub and booze. We checked back into the same hostel as before, got ready and headed off to the pub. Everyone turned up and it turned into a good night. We ended up speaking to a Danish Couple, Martin and Perneille, most of the night.

Next day and we had a long tie in, we went for some breakfast and met Brids mate Claire again. Copied some DVD's in the internet shop and then went back to the hostel as Brid had to give some first aid to a girl who we'd met a ton of times up the east coast who had just done her sky dive but landed on her ass instead of her feet, and gave herself a nasty cut on her butt. We had a couple of beers at the hostel before going into town to meet the Danish couple again for a 10dollar meal than turned out to be really good. We headed home quite late off to bed, away to Darwin tomorrow.