Hi all, Hope you are all well where ever you are reading this from. I have created this postcard to fill you all in on my open water diving course in cairns...... I arrived on a Monday evening and straight away booked myself on my open water (PADI) diving course. This was a four day course, 2 days in the classroom and swimming pool and two days out on the barrier reef. The first day was the hardest having to pass a swimming test (straight after a KFC lunch). My younger cousins Liam & especially Abigail would easily pass this test, but I was struggling with 12 laps of the pool and treading water for 10 minutes. The rest was fairly easy in terms of the tests and exams I'd to do. The diving in the pool was a good laugh and you were given exercises to do which were also fairly straight forward. Day 3 and we were on our way out to sea. Believe it or not I hadn't had a beer all week as I was getting up at 6 or 7 each morning for the course and was advised to go easy before dives. We got out to the great barrier reef and got into our wetsuits and put our tanks on and jumped in. For some reason I wanted to swallow gallons of salt water which also made me nervous and I kinda forgot that I had a BCD which would keep me afloat. We went down about 10meters and had a look around the reef, but I was not the most comfortable. To say the least the first open water dive was not great. My air ran down very quickly as I was gasping in as much air as possible and as quickly as possible. My second dive was much better and I started to get my confidence, so by the time we were heading back to the coast I was looking forward to my next three dives on day 4. Day 4 was the best in terms of diving as it was just me 1 on 1 with the instructor and rather than he being an instructor he was more like a buddy. We dived down to 18 meters got the exercises (which are part of passing the course) out of the way and then just swam around part of the reef. It was quality, the marine life was great and I seen turtles, schools of fish and other strange and wonderful stuff on the corals and the reef. There was a little blue thing on the coral that would disappear into the coral when you put your hand near. My fourth dive was the best and I was really enjoying being 18 meters below the surface of the sea. As I was the only student doing my 3rd and 4th dives we were the only 2 people (me and the instructor) down 18 meters. I could see others above us at around 10meters, but then we went off behind some of the coral. The next thing we came across a white tip shark just lying in the sand. I really thought that when I came face to face with a shark I would s*** it swim to the top and that would be the end of my diving, but it was awesome. To be so close to a shark in his natural environment is unlike any thing I have ever seen or done. The JAWS music was going in my mind and I kept thinking this is where the sharks team up and 1 looks pretty while the big f*cker swims up behind you and takes a junk out of your arse, but that wasn't the case. I was now a certified open water diver and had one more recreational dive to do after lunch. This time I teamed up with another guy who had donehis course as you have to dive in pairs. I was a small bit nervous as this was my first time diving with out an instructor. However this was also amazing as we went to this wall on the reef which dropped down god knows how far. We only went down the allowed 18 meters again. I could only dive for 36 minutes at 18 meters as I had already done 2 18 meter dives and you could get decompression sickness if you exceeded the reccomened limits. We seen more turtles and schools of colourful fish. It is so amazing diving on the barrier reef and I was so glad I did the course in Cairns rather than in Thailand. I have another dive coming up on the Whit Sunday islands and I hope to do my advanced diving course in thailand or vietnam. What a hobby!