So after Christmas it was time for me to take the plunge (literally) and head up to the Barrier Reef to embark on becoming at one with my fishy brothers.

An early start saw me at Sydney airport boarding a Jetstar flight to Cairns. I literally had to be there 15 minutes before the flight and was possibly one of the most pleasurable airports moments I've had. The 3 hour flight wasn't too bad and I arrived in a sunny and humid Cairns.

After finding a shuttle bus I arrived at my hostel for the next few days. The Caravella Backpackers on the Esplanade. I was a little apprehensive about the whole "hostel thing" as I'm the first to admit when it comes to things like that I'm a bit of a snob. After an initial hiccup of being put in a dorm with no free bed I was put into a dorm with a Canadian lady I'd checked in with and 2 English girls. I was pleasantly surprised the dorm was clean, tidy and air conditioned. As I was only staying here for 3 nights whilst completing my 2 days of diving training I thought I would make the most of my only spare day and hit the pool at the hostel. Managed to relax in the sun with my book for about 2 hours and then the rain began to fall. Little did I know that rain would continue for the whole week.

I arrived at the ProDive training centre at 8.30am and were sat in a classroom with around 20 other people. After a short briefing on the course and some theory and safety stuff I found myself putting together my own SCUBA gear which consisted of ; wetsuit, mask, snorkel, flippers, tank/cylinder, regulator (mouthpiece and tubes), weight belt and BCD (Buoyancy Control Device) before getting into the pool. We did a number of skills such as flooding & clearing the mask, breathing through our buddy's alternate air source (I was buddied up with the Dive Master, someone who is learning to be a dive instructor) and removing and replacing our weight belt..

After we got used to the very strange feeling of being able to breath underwater we descended to about 4m in the pool to practice our buoyancy and hovering skills along with learning how to equalise our ears. In the afternoon we did some theory and a few mini tests. That evening I spent about 2 hours revising the manual (it was like being back at school!)

The next day we were back in the classroom and took our final exam that morning. I got 98% (Swot!) so I both passed easily. In the afternoon we were back in the pool practicing the the skills again and also what to do in emergency situations. We were then whisked off to the dive shop to choose our gear for the next 3 days on the boat.

On the second night I went to a lecture called 'Reef Teach' with one of the English guys in the class where we would learn about all of the creatures/coral that we would find on the reef. We also learned a very interesting fact about Nemo that Disney failed to mention in the movie..... A standard family of Clownfish would consist of Female (Mum), Male (Dad) and a baby (Nemo). If the Mum was to die.... as in the film, then the Dad would pump himself full of hormones and turn into 'Mum'. The child 'Nemo' would then pump itself full of hormones and become 'Dad'. Mum (used to be Dad) and Dad (used to be Nemo) would then have offspring!..... very incestuous and we could see why Disney left it out!

The next day we were picked up at 6.15am and taken to board the boat. There were 32 divers on board and 6 crew. We were briefed on the trip and shown to our cabins. After a 3hr trip which was a bit rocky to say the least (and glad of the purchase of seasickness tablets) we arrived at the Great Barrier Reef at a site called 'Petaj' on Flynn Reef. Within moments of stopping we were told to go out onto the dive deck and to 'suit up' before the 1st (of 9) dives on the Reef. Entering the water for the first time was very strange compared to being in the pool. Especially as we had big waves to contend with.

My buddy for the training dives was Rich, his girlfriend Chelsey was doing the advanced dive course as she'd already done her open water certification. So we're in the water, signalled "OK" to the boat and now we're ready to descend along the anchor chain because the water was too rough to descend alone. We descended to about 12m and swam around the Coral Reefs, the colours were amazing albeit due to the poor visability wasn't quite as bright as one would think. And I had a school of fish swim right at me (sods law) Our dive was supposed to be an hour but because of the conditions it was decided that we would try and get some of the skills out of the way, on the ocean floor we did our, mask half and full fill and clear, and a bit of swimming around. On this first dive I saw a Reef Shark, Turtle, and Clownfish (I had found Nemo!) When we got to the surface we had to do some of our surface skills, like the emergency ascent and taking off of the weight belt and BCD. This was definitely a lot harder than in the pool because of the 3m waves and the current, and not to mention the pouring rain. Although as conditions were due to get worse it was best to get these out the way as soon as possible. In the afternoon we did another training dive where we had to do the skills practiced in the pool again in the sea which this time included mask removal and clear. I had a little panic moment on this one. In Reef Teach I had learnt about a little fish that was lazy and sucked itself to either sharks, bigger fish or divers for a free ride. Just as I was removing my mask I saw one of the little b*****s. I did not want one of those sticking to me. So trying not to panic, I have the mask back on but full of water, cannot see the fish, which is probably now stuck to my leg. Can't clear my mask of water because I'm conventrating on breathing rather than hyperventilating.. The dive instructor is wondering what I'm doing because I've not had a problem clearing my mask before (I did explain once on the surface), finally did it and thankfully the fish wasn't there.

The next morning we had 2 more dives and learned skills such as compass navigation and towing a tired diver. On the first dive I had trouble sinking and was ascending at a rate too quick, all I needed was an extra weight on my belt and that seemed to have sorted it..

After the 4th dive I had completed the course and was given my card as a 'Certified Open Water Diver'. In the afternoon we missed out on a dive because the conditions were too dangerous. That night we we all taken on a guided night dive which was quite eerie as the only light was from torches. The instructors decided it would be funny to play the 'Jaws' Theme over the loudspeakers before we got in.....hilarious and tell us stories about the ring of steel! I was not very impressed, I was hoping all the fish would be asleep, but the thought of not being able to see where they were in the dark was freaking me out. The night dive was great but it was very strange looking to the sides and just seeing pitch black! We didn't see much on the night dive apart from jellyfish, sharks and little prawn like creatures.

That night conditions got even worse....I'm not sure how that was possible because for the previous couple of days everyone was "feeding the fish" from the back of the boat due to the rocking. At 3.30am we were awoken by the crew telling us to put on our life jackets and sit in the saloon of the boat. Waves were now at 6m and we were in the middle of a Cyclone, we had broken away from our mooring. Just my luck!

The next morning no one would believe the night we had endured, the sun was well and truly out with his hat on. As we had lost our mooring we couldn't moor on our planned dive site so had to try and find another one. This meant we would only have a chance for one pleasure dive as certified divers. I didn't have a buddy, so buddied up with the German instructor, which I was pleased about because I hadn't really had a clue what they were going on about in the dive briefing. It was hilarious, I had to save his life, as he'd forgotten to turn on his oxygen tank. That's the first thing you do...haha....the other dive instructors took the pee out of him for the rest of the day. This was an amazing dive, no having to fill up masks with sea water that stings your eyes. Saw lots of fish and got close to the coral. The visabilty still wasn't great because of the storm but definitely the best site that we'd dived in my opinion.

That night back in Cairns we went out for a meal with the people off the course and went for a few drinks. The coursemates and instructors were a good group and we ended up dancing on the tables (it was encouraged) to the small hours in the Woolshed bar.

I definitely will be diving again, I'm getting there with the fish phobia, but was still petrified by the 2m Wrasse we saw. And I invested $200 in a snorkel and mask so I want to get my money's worth!