Day 83-87

From the 19th to the 23rd June we were in the hands of Pro Dive, to become certified PADI Openwater divers. We had 2 days in the pool and classroom before our adventure to the Great Barrier Reef for 3 days 2 nights on a liveaboard boat.

We were greated by our Instructor Scuba Steve, who was the most enthusiastic and bubbly person we'd ever known. His love for diving certainly shone through...'yeah'.

Day 1: We had to pass 3 tests and pass our medical to be able to enter the pool. We passed our tests with no problems. Al passed his medical with flying colours although Lorna's was a different matter. We had a test which involved a instrument being put in our ears to test the pressure behind them, the graph should show to mountain peaks. Only one of Lorna's ears showed this, the other ear was flat. The doctor said that if Lorna couldn't equalise in the pool, which was 4m, then Lorna couldn't dive; but proved to the doctor that she could equalise out of water.

We both had no problems in the water with all the tasks and equalising which was good news. But we were eager for day 2.

Day 2: We had to pass another exam before entering the pool. We had to do more skills and also go over the ones we had learnt the day before. After lunch we had to do our final exam which included everything we had learnt in the classroom and in the pool. We both passed!

Some of the skills we had learnt to do includes; setting up our gear, buddy checks, underwater signals, removing our masks underwater and swimming without them for 1 minute only using our regulators, what to do if we ran out of air, how to rescue a diver in need and plan our next dive using an RPG grid. We were now ready for the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) and VERY excited.

Day 3; We had an early start and was picked up at 0600 where we headed to the Marina for our 3 hour boat journey for our 1st dive in the ocean. The ocean was pretty rough and even though we had taken seasickness tablets Lorna changed colour. We had 2 dives today both at Millin Reef 'Pools' whereby we had to carry out some of the skills we had learnt in the pool. We were amazed with the beauty although a little nervous at entering, Lorna especially with her ears; but they were fine. Our first dive was to 10m and the second to 7m.

Day 4; A slightly later start, our first dive was at Millin Reef again but this time at 'Whale Bommie'. Again we had to complete some more skills in the water, but we had no problems. We saw heaps more on this dive than the previous day. We saw a giant female turtle called 'Brain', sucker fish, blue spotted sting rays, cleaner wrasse fish cleaning other fish in the cleaning stations and even white tiped sharks, around 4 in total. Our 2nd dive of the day was at Flynn Reef at 'Tennis Court' it was not a disappointment either. While the rest of the group went off in there buddies for the navigation part of the course, we went with Ian who needed to complete a guided tour as part of his Dive Master qualification. We were still at Flynn's Reef but this time at 'Gordon's Mooring'. We had 1 more dive of the day and this was a night dive at Flynn's Reef at 'Gordon's Mooring'. For this we followed our Instructor like our first 3 dives as it is harder to navigate in the dark and plus it was our first time. The marine life was completely different. Most of the fish were asleep but we got to see 'Brain' sleeping under coral and also a Grey Whaler Shark which is twice the size of a White Tiped shark.

We played some crazy games after dinner including; tangling and untangling ourselves with a broom, rolling on cans to see how far we could push one and return to the same spot on one, Lorna won the womens and beat Al. Our other physical game was picking up a tissue box off the floor and seeing how low we could go, Lorna won this too. It was then onto mental games, Macca had 10 of us up until 1230 with these. We managed to get our own back with him, by getting him as confused as we were with his games.

Day 5; We were tired this morning as we were up at 0530 for an early morning dive. We had both decided to do the Adventure course which enables us to dive down to 30m instead of 18m. By doing this course we could only do 8 dives instead of 9 because of the amount of Nitrogen in our body, we were happy with this as we snorkelled instead. We were again diving at Flynn's Reef at 'Gordon's Mooring' but at a much deeper part as our previous dive was at 12m. Once at 20m it was very easy to get to 30m due to the density of the water, we played some games whilst at the very bottom. A flourescent green torch had turned flourescent yellow, tennis balls had been compressed and we also had to count to 20 seconds. It took us 37 seconds due to experiencing Nitrogen Narcossis which is like being drunk. Although we didn't realise that we had it until we received our times when filling in our log books. We saw common and spotfin lionfish and Lorna saw another Grey Whaler shark. After our snorkel and lunch we were able to dive. We dived at Flynn Reef once more but this time at 'Coral Garden'. Wehad been doing giant stride enters into the water, this time we went off in a speed boat via a backroll entry (James Bond style) and then navigated ourselves back to the boat. We saw another turtle, nemo and a Barramundi Cod too.

We then headed back to Cairns; we were sad to leave the GBR as it had been so much fun. We met up with the crew and group for a meal in the evening which was great. We found out from Russell, our chef that the game with the can has been stopped due to a can being split. Ooppss!