Cairns Scuba Diving

Hey well after the my last post, went for a look around cairns city center, pretty average, the same shops every block, hostel, photo shop, travel shop, cairns tourist souvenir shop, restaurants....thats preety much cairns in a nutshell.

Went back to the hostel for a beer, cus they wudnt let me check in till 2 and time was draggin in the red hot sun, by 1 it had started to rain, and from all accounts on the papers the next day, it was a really bad storm up north cairns. Anyways, checked in and chilled out for abit. 2 english girls checked in not long after I had, katie and kathy, went out with katie for pizza, went bk to the room and had a chat with kathy, she had done scubba diving the day before and she gave me the flyer, it sounded wicked, so I went and booked on for the next mornin.

Got down to the harbour and headed to the boat...noah's ark.

All the blokes on the boats were sound, rite funny ozzies, paul the main bloke was like "wats ya name knuckles?" anyways because the weather was amazin and the sea was calm as hell, he told us we were goni to this part of the outer barrier reef which is literally the last bit and then its open ocean, it needed to be calm seas because there was no protection from currents from the ocean. It took us 2 hours to get there, and about 35mins before we arrived paul took us newbies up top for a safety breif, told all about the equipment and what we would do, and all the hand gestures that we wud be using. I got talkin to a candanian girl, Dominique, she was certified but we spent the whole day chattin.

When we arrived i went for a snorkel while they got all the certified divers in the water, even though they said the water was 28 degrees it was a shock to the body, but you soon realised that it was cold, and there were loads of really warm currents drifting through. The reef we stopped at was 3 mountains, thats not the name, but they were 3 speerate mountains of coral going down to about 15-20 meters. As soon as you jump in they are loads of fish everwhere, of every color, bright purple, luminus lime green, blue, orange, nemo coloured ones, was fab, looked around for about 20mins and then went bk to the boat to get geared up. Got the lead belt on, tank on, fins and mask, the tank is really heavy and really difficult to walk with big weight on back in flippers!!!

Jumped in and floated straight on my front, paul pulled me back and got me sorted out, got me feelin ok, then let some air out of my jacket to lower me abit, and its so wierd breathin under water, almost scary, cs the air is normal air but its filtered, so its cold and dry, but we carried on down abit futher were again he made sure me and this other guy were ok, then we headed off into the coral, its was amazin, the fish treat you like other fish and they swim with you, and all around, like rite besdie you as if to say "come on then i'll show you the way", paul was showin us dirrent creatures that we could hold and things we cud touch, and he wud point out fish that, like nemo and all his mates, like were they hide in the coral. Afetr about 10mins, my mouth was really dry and I lost sight of paul and the other guy which made me panic abit, but you have to look 360 in "every" direction and i found them after i swished around a couple of times, but you can tell your breathin changes and I really wanted to pull the regulator out of my mouth, but you have to resist temptation for obvious reasons. we made our way back to the boat....I didnt have a clue were we were or how we got back to the boat, but we did :) everyone got back on board and we set off for this near by island, that looked like a mountain of sand in the middle of the ocean, looked pure paradise, however it is a national park and nobody is aloud on the island because turtles lay there eggs there, also there is no fishing aloud there, so there are lots of fish's about, we all grabbed some lunch on route.

Wen we arrived at the new site, us newbies were the first in the water, I felt alot more comfortable here, it was only 3-5meters deep in places. We saw some baracudas, and we hid behind this massive rock/coral and waited and these 3 sharks came along, nuthin the size of jaws but about 6ft each, they seemed really timid, when we got anywere near close they shot off. I felt more comfortable venturin off abit uno like withing 10-15 meters of the others. We headed back got the gear off, and i was straight bk in snorkling, I swam over to the island were 1 of the girls of the boat was sittin in the shallow water not on the beach(we were allowed to do this, just not go on the beach, plus tresspassing carried and 8000 dollar fine), as I approached I said hello, and she said "aawwwiight geeeza" in a broad cockney accent...so funny! Sat there for abit, had a chat, she was out here on holiday and a wedding. I swam back to the boat, as I felt like I was bein toated by the sun even with factor 30 on, was amazin there, nuthin but crystal clear blue sea around and pure what looked like white sand, it was actually bigger than sand, more like gravel but very fine. On the way back I chatted with dominique about everythin we saw that day, and we got onto movies...I found another anchorman followerer.

Our hostel were in the same direction so we ledt together and decided to meet for a drink later on. So I went and got my pics developed and got changed, met up at 7 with her and her friends from canada, grabbed some food, had a few beers and went round to this bar called the woolshed, re-nouned for dancing on tables etc, had a good crack in there.

But Lisa Lashes is playin at the soho nighclub a block down 2nite...wednesday....mint, im gonna rip the place apart :)