Waking up that Monday felt like we were back at school again.  Waiting out the front of Cairns Holiday Park, our bus arrived to take us to Cairns Dive Centre.  Upon arrivial we met our wacky diving instructor Ethan, who was up for a good yarn.  With only 3 other students in the class, we smashed through the morning theory/videos, with Ethan’s out-there stories about past dives helping our labourious paperwork.  Before we knew it we were in the pool completing some basic swimming and treading excerises before the next stage.

The time had come when we were introduced to our diving equipment which was incredibly exciting.  All geared up for our first test, we were to go against all we have been taught, breathing underwater.  It was simply inhaling and exhaling through our regulators but without goggles on.  As Nay soared through flying colours with no hesitation, Mark on the other hand shot up after 5 seconds as his mind was playing tricks on him.  After another couple of tries, we were all under and having a blast.

The second day we completed a few more basic exercises underwater in the pool.  This included removing our regulators and replacing them, removing our goggles and clearing them, removing our BCD (lifejacket) and some emergency procedures.  Once these were ticked off by Ethan, he then taught us how to became neutrally boyant (practically zero gravity).  From here he made sure we all swam at an even level and once confident we were doing laps 4m below waterlevel!  After having a blast underwater we had a little more theory to tick off and before we knew it our final exam was complete!

The next day was what we were here for, diving in the ocean at the Great Barrier Reef!  We had set ourselves up for 3 days on the Kangaroo Explorer (KE) with CDC having 9 dives which included a night dive!  After Ethan ran through the basic induction with his usual fan fair humour, we sat patiently like excited kids for two hours until it was time for our first ocean dive!

Gearing up and running through the necessary buddy check before diving, we performed a ‘giants stride’ from the diving platform into the ocean.  We were beside ourselves as we slowly descended from the back of the boat as a mixed emotion of fear and exhilliration took over.  The first sight we saw as we dropped below sea level was a great big barracoota!  Upon calming down, we continued to descend and put everything we’d learnt in the pool into practice.

As part of the course, we had to accomplish the skills learnt from the past two days in the ocean.  Once a few were done in each dive we spent the rest of our time underwater looking for cool sea creatures!  During the first dives we were lucky to see a little manta shrimp in his home (a deep hole about 50mm wide), a feather star (starfish with feather like points) and even a frog fish!  These were all pointed out by Ethan as most of the time we were distracted by the vast sea life and the pure amazement of diving in the ocean!!

Having Ethan knock on our door at an ungodly hour the following day, he was suprisingly already up and about in his bouncy mood!  Learning a second way of entering the water, we dropped in backwards off the boat (this definitely woke us up!)  Having a camera man on the Kangaroo Explorer, he joined us for a couple of dives while we continued our skills.  The previous night we were given some slate to draw on and take under water with us.  While being 14m underwater, we took turns in showing our slates as they were filmed.  It was a nifty idea and fun showing our creations!

While completing the skills of removing our goggles and regulator, we had an opportunity to wear sunnies and drink from an empty beer can.  As you can see Nay was looking super fly and Mark was getting jolly deep down at the Great Barrier Reef.  Having each dive last between 30-35mins it was always exciting once the course components were done and we cruised around.  At one stage Ethan showed us a brittle starfish.  Being ever so gentle, it floated onto our arms, crawled around on us and then made its way to the next diver.

It wasn’t long before our first 4 dives zoomed by and we had our open water certificate!  This allowed us to dive up to 18m without an instructor.  In our first free dive, as we buddied up with another classmate Mathieu, we were thrown literally, in the deep end.  Achieving a 44min dive, 16m deep, we were incredibly lost by the end and had no idea where to find the boat.  It wasn’t until we resurfaced that we found we were 150m away and we had to snorkel our way back as we’d run out of air in our tanks.  During the dive though, we had the best experience, seeing a stingray, copious amounts of fish (including nemo) and even two white tipped sharks – Mark unfortunately missed them.

Next up was the night dive!  Absolutely packing ourselves as we were briefed, there was still a rush of excitement among us.  With only a small handheld torch, we descended into the dark with only 5m visibility.  Close beside our buddies we went searching!  An amazing activity during the night was to shine our torches on little bait fish.  This points them out to the larger fish and there was neverending enjoyment watching these big boys chase their dinner.

Feeling like we were ‘lost in space’ with darkness surrounding us, we luckily found an epilept shark.  This small ground dwelling shark nests on the coral beds and has a secondary set of fins which enables him to crawl.  During our eerie night time exploration we spotted a green sea turtle swimming around us too.  With these two great sightings and the thrill of floating in ‘space’, the night dive was definitely one we were going to remember.

As all good things must come to an end, the final day we were looking like zombies.  Deciding to complete our advanced open water dive coarse (allowing up to 30m dives) which involved late night briefs, had our eyes glazing over.  Once we dived back in the water, we were alive again!

On our deep dive that took us to 26m we had a couple of fun activities.  Ethan brought an egg down with him and cracked it open.  Due to the density of the water at this depth, the egg yolk was intact and we took turns passing it around the circle.  It wasn’t long until the cheeky fish caught wind and snapped the egg out of Nays’ hand!  Also taking a tomato and apple to this depth turned them green (as the colour red doesn’t carry this deep through water).  We also had a small game of down ball with the apple and bounced it around on the sand!  After blowing up a decompressed 1.25l bottle of coke and banging it around, Ethan made a loud thumping noise with the bottle.  This apparently attracts sharks as 4 white tips came in to check us out!  The thrill of attracting these beasts outweighed being scared.

Two final dives remaining lead us to navigation skills and one final free dive.  The dive site we were on was unbelievably fun as there were tunnel systems throughout the bombies.  We swam through and navigated the wildlife and coral formations.  Being neutrally bouyant we took full opportunity to do flips at a depth of 18m.  It was mad fun!  Going through so many tunnel systems we definitely didn’t put our navigation skills to use as we lost the boat for a second time having another 100m swim back.  All part of the adventure!

There was a sad realisation on the Friday that our time was up.  Having to catch the charter boat back to Cairns we departed and left our newly found diving friends and hilarious instructor Ethan.  As holidays were ending for these new friends, ours was still continuing with a new companion.  Stu had arrived to join us on the road just as we left to go on the Kangaroo Explorer.  The next great achievement for us on the horizon was the tip of Australia…