Scuba Diving!

So the night after snorkeling I went to the travel guide's office in my hostel. I booked my scuba adventure (which began at 7:30...), and excitedly packed for my excursion. Upon getting on the boat, I had to show my temporary scuba certification card. I am really happy that I was certified prior to Aussie. Here you can go diving with a guide without being certified, but it's expensive and you can't explore as much. I filled out my medical form and had a few bites of breakfast. I was given a lycra suit to protect against stingers, and I jumped in. Shortly after, I had my scuba gear on, but I was super nervous for my first salt water open dive. I put an extra weight on my weight belt to help me get my neutral buoyancy and next thing you know, my buddy Jarri (twenty-something from Holland) and I were doing our final gear checks. I inched up to the platform, of course 10 feet above the water, put my hand to protect my goggles and second stage, took one large step, and found myself in 30 degree Celsius water. Basically, it felt like I was in a bath because it was so warm. We deflated our BCDs and next thing you know, I'm on a coral reef about 30 feet beneath the surface. Colours are every where from the reef and fish. We dove for 45 minutes, and I felt like I was weightless in space. Truly, with that much room, you really get a chance to understand that breathing is everything in scuba. Instead of inflating and deflating your BCD to control your depth, once you're truly neutrally bouyant, you can tell how one breath in or out controls your depth. So long as you manage your breath, you control your depth, keeping in mind that any air in you expands as you ascend. I have a list of fish which I saw will post later and I even saw a few turtles. It was incredible. Our first dive was on Milln Reef at a place called Fish Town. Unfortunately, you could see a lot of physical damage to the reef, which had occurred because of Hurricane Yasi about a month ago. CycloneYasi was reported to be the “cyclone to end all cyclones”. A cyclone is the exact same thing as a hhurricane except the wind blows in the opposite direction. In any case, Yasi was to be a category 5, and it was to compound on the damage from the Queensland Floods. Truly, the news reported that it would be the worst natural disaster in Australian history. Here's the rub though, it was no where near as bad as predicted. I mean it wiped out so many banana farms, but it was only a category 3 cyclone. Regardless, the reef sustained a lot of damage, which I could see. In any case, my dive was super amazing.

Upon surfacing, we didn't have too long to wait for our second dive. I was surprised there was such a short surface interval, but we really weren't diving too deep to be concerned about residual nitrogen. During the second dive, I was so much more comfortable, and we were at the Coral Gardens on Flynn Reef. This time was even better. The water was less green here (it was greenish because Yasi stirred up the Coral Sea), and I saw some amazing things. I will tell you I touched sea cucumbers, dead coral, a turtle, and so many fun textures and creatures ike a starfish. But on the second dive I saw some things I was excited for: 2 different sea turtles, a sting ray, and 2 SHARKS!! I was so psyched for the sharks since I love them. I swam with sharks!!! It was amazing! I felt like inside the telly when Shark Week is on Discovery Channel. Loved it.

After the second dive, I had some lunch and wrote down what I had seen. I need to look at afish chart and compile a list of the critters I saw. There were sooooo many. Also, I just had to point that about four square inches of my body were exposed – my ears and a part of my cheeks. I still managed to get stung on the ear... luckily there was no shock or muscle spasms immediately since it was a harmless jelly. I pulled my lycra stinger suit over my ears after that point, of course. Oh, and during the second dive, we ran into a really big pink jelly, not the little ones we had been seeing. Our guide started poking the bell of the jelly like how they bounce on the bells in Finding Nemo, which is not venomous. I can say that I touched a jelly fish and it was squishy like Dory said.

After lunch, I jumped in for my third and final dive, knowing that I don't know the next time I'll have the opportunity. I saw a few more sharks and the most beautiful craature of the day: a manta ray. Google it, it's so cool. It glides like an angel in the water. Oh, and I saw someone special during this dive. There wass someone looking intently at one portion of the reef looking for Finding Nemo's mom. Yes, I swam right by a rather unfriendly looking barracuda, and he was huuuuuuge and so cool. The craziest thing about diving, is that these animals are fine so long as you respect them and don't provoke them. Just a fun dive to end on, and it was the most beautiful reef. It was so healthy looking with little cyclone damage. It was seriously like the reef from Finding Nemo. And when the sun shone, corals had an opoalescent or kaleidescope sheen and glittered like the gemstones of the sea – every shade, shape, and size.

After the third dive at Tracy's Spot on Flynn reef, I put my gear away, threw on my goggles, snorkel, and fins and went snorkelling. I didn't see anything except fish (btw, some fish can be the size of a small refridgerator; and they are common). I am NOT joking about this. When the boat called us in, I dried off, grabbed some fruit and tea, and changed. On the way home, I recorded everything in my log boo.

I went home and got an idea of what I was doing the next day. Sadly, the hostel bar was closed so the four guys from my room (2 German, 1 English, and 1 Belgian) decided to talk till 2:30 am. And they were obnoxious and only talked about sex. And of course they asked me, so I showed them Kyle's ring and told them I was engaged and that shut them up. I brought earplugs and a sleep mask, so at least I could sleep. Except they decided to pack at 5:00 am. Pardon my French, but in all seriousness, fuck those guys because they were rude to me and the other quiet girl living with us,It's ok though, because I had so much fun the next day! :D