Liveaboard Dive Trip

[Warning: this post covers three very long days.  You might want get some drinks and snacks because you'll be sitting for a while if you read this whole post at once.]

The next part of our journey was a three-day/two-night "liveaboard" dive trip.  The first four dives on this trip were to finish our PADI open water certification (up to 18 meters depth in non-confined spaces), the the remaining five were just for pleasure, including one at night.  This was definitely the most fun part of the entire vacation.  It was worth every penny I paid.  The boat, ScubaPro II, accommodated about thirty passengers and six crew in small but adequate double bunk rooms.  It had a spacious dining room area, a sun deck on top, a dive deck for gearing up, and a duck board with stairs for entering and exiting the water.  Aside from Ivo, David, Ben, and myself, the other passengers and crew were from all over--Australia, Canada, Sweden, England, South Africa, Poland, you name it.  We all got along swimmingly. (See what I did there?)

Thankfully, the ScubaPro II was not inflatable... 

Breathtaking views surrounded the boat.

As it turned out, Ben and I weren't the only ones observing Passover on the boat.  Another kid, Amir, was doing it with us, although he pretended to be Sefardi and ate rice.  The cook on the boat was very accommodating, and even though it took a couple of tries to explain what we could and couldn't eat, she got it right.  Basically we ended up eating a lot of salads and yogurt, which we supplemented with matzo that we had brought onto the boat.

DAY 1: 9 April

We woke up early.  Really early.  We walked the short block to the dive shop where we checked in and jumped into vans to take us to the marina.  People were still pretty quiet at this point because most of us were still half asleep.  You really have to be a morning person to do these trips often.

When we got on the boat, fruit and pastries were waiting for us.  The damn pastries looked incredible, but my will power persisted and I stuck to fruit and tea.  As we were left the harbor, Jack gave us our room assignments and we put our bags away.  Then the dive coordinator, Arek, introduced everyone and laid the ground rules for the trip, which were basically that we had to wear shirts at meals and we weren't allowed inside with wet clothes.  He warned us that the three-hour trip to the reef might be choppy, and showed where the barf bags were.  Apparently they are biodegradable, so you just throw them in the water and the fish have a feast.  As much as I would have loved to see that, I took a seasickness pill.  Most people napped as we cruised out.

Three hours later we got to the first dive site, the "Pools" at Millin Reef.  Jack had the four of us get our gear together before the boat stopped so we could be the first ones in the water.  This was the first of many times we'd have to put the gear together, as part of the certification involves dismantling and assembling the equipment after each dive.  After our buddy checks, we jumped in the water using that funny "long stride" entry you always see on TV.  Ocean.  Cool.  Well, actually, it was the perfect temperature.

Dive #1

Jack had us slowly descend down the anchor rope (which was tied to a big piece of concrete on the ocean floor), with one hand on the rope.  The other hand you need to press the release valve on the BCD (so you become negatively buoyant) and to periodically pinch your nose for equalizing.  Descending into the ocean is one of the coolest feelings.  After a minute of staring down the rope at Jack, I realized I was at one of the natural wonders of the world, and figured I should look around.  So I did, and already I saw some cool fish.

The first part of the dive we spent getting used to the underwater environment.  Once we were comfortable on the floor, Jack took us for a tour around the reef.  We around slowly, only about 11 meters at the deepest, getting the feeling for the buoyancy.  Jack picked up one of the funny looking lumps on the sand, which turned out to be a sea cucumber, and I got to touch its slimy skin.  There were some incredible fish down there.  The colors on these guys are unbelievable.  Greens, yellows, blues, some reds.  Stripes, spots, everything.  It's exactly like in Finding Nemo.  (Clownfish to come.)

We ascended back up the rope slowly after about half an hour.  Once we got to the surface, we practiced some of the pool skills like stretching out cramps (I actually got one), towing a tired diver, switching from snorkel to regulator and back, and removing/replacing the BCD and weights in the water.  (You can actually sit on the tank like a pool noodle and say "I have steel between my legs!")  We climbed out, gave our safety numbers and dive data to the staff, and then removed our gear and rinsed off.

Underwater flying.

Dive #2

After lunch was the second dive, also at the "Pools." This time we dove on the other side of the boat, se we saw a different part of the reef.  Again, we were able to descent down a rope, and then we stopped in a sandy patch to do a bunch of skills.  We practiced mask removal and replacement (it's important to know how to clear the water out of the mask without having to surface), out-of-air (breathing from Ben's second regulator), and achieving neutral buoyancy.

The neutral buoyancy exercise is actually pretty cool.  The idea is that you can actually control your buoyancy slightly by just controlling your breathing.  As you breathe in, your lungs expand and you become more buoyant.  When you exhale, the opposite happens.  So once you get close with your BCD, you face down with your toes on the floor and breathe normally.  The idea is to become stationary at an angle, almost like holding a pushup with no hands.  I think this skill is actually one of the harder ones to master, because controlling your breathing helps make the dive smoother and lets you stay under longer.  The other nice thing about this technique is that if there's an obstacle you just take a deep breathe and go over it.  It's all really fluid (haha).  After the skills we swam around a bit.  We saw our first ray, which was awesome.  Jack had to sort of coax it off the sandy floor, and then it swam around us.  It was a decent sized one, maybe 18-inches not including the tail.

Before we got out of the water we practiced a CESA, a controlled emergency swimming ascent.  Jack took each of us down individually to about 6 meters.  What you do is, when you're out of air, you take your last deep breath in, and then slowly breathe out while swimming slowly upwards with your hands in the air like superman.  Then you have to orally inflate your BCD on the surface (because there's no air in the tank to do it).  The important thing is to not hold your breath, because if you do the air in your lungs will expand during the ascent, and with nowhere to go that can cause life-threatening injuries.  I did just fine, but I realized if I had done it any deeper I would have had to breathe out slower because I got to the surface just as I was running out.

At this point we were officially certified "scuba" divers, one blow "open water."  I'm not sure exactly what the difference is, but the open water requires compas navigation skills so I'm assuming that means it lets you dive without a guide.  The already-certified divers did one more dive, but this was the last dive for us that day.  

The boat moved to a new dive site, although I don't remember the name.  Even though we didn't dive, we were able to snorkel.  Since it was a shallow site and the reef came up almost to the surface, we were able to see a ton.  In fact, this is where Ben and I saw our first SHARK!!!  We also said hello to our first turtle.  I can't wait until we're certified and we can take a camera down there!

We had a bit of down time, but most people went to sleep early.  Tomorrow is an early morning.

The captains, above water.

The captains, below water.

Day 2: 10 April

Dive #3

We were in the water before 8 AM.  The new dive site was called the "Ski Slopes" at Flynn Reef, so named because there is a big steep portion that drops off pretty deep.  One of the goals for this dive was to get a maximum depth between 16.5 and 17.5 meters (the dive computer tells you your depth and records the maximum so you can't cheat).  I hit 17.5 m exactly.  We repeated a couple of skills, but actually spent most of the time swimming around.  One of the coolest things you can do sometimes is swim through a school of fish.  It's amazing because they never run into you, they just sort of form a cocoon around you.  If you try to grab one they're incredibly illusive.  I saw my first and only starfish on this dive.

Dive #4

Since we were a small group, Jack let us do a special entry for our last training dive.  We were going to do a tender drop, where you get to roll backwards out of the small boat, but we didn't all fit in the inflatable, so we did a high jump flip instead.  We jumped from the actual dive deck, not the duck board, which was about three meters off the water.  All you do is hold your mask/regulator in one hand and the back of your head with the other and do a front flip into the water, landing on your back on the surface.  It's a pretty big rush.  If I had my choice, I would have done that for every dive because it makes the whole experience that much more dramatic.  Unfortunately, my snorkel came unclipped when I hit the water, but Jack was kind enough to dive down and get it.

The point of this final dive was to learn navigation.  It's pretty simple.  All you have to do is turn the outer compass ring (the boy scout in me is ashamed to have forgotten the term for it) to the bearing you want, then put the north needle in its home and swim.  A little window at the back of the compas always tells you the bearing you're heading.  We practiced this technique with a surface swim, then again underwater.  It's trickier down there because the current makes it hard to swim straight, so retracing your bearings might not get you to where you started.  The fix for that is the same as it is on land.  Find a reference point (a rock, for example), and go to that instead of staring down at your compass the whole time.  I got better at this with practice on subsequent dives.

After swimming around a bunch, we assembled back at the rope for our safety stop.  Jack held up a slate that said "Congratulations you're all certified divers and you are awesome!" which signified that our training was complete.  I am now a certified open water diver for the rest of my life.  Back on the dive deck we all shook hands.  The four of us had formed a pretty tight group at this point, and I was genuinely proud of each of us and myself.  Needless to say, I'm having an amazing time.

A certified diver, a.k.a. me!

Dive #5

As certified divers, we went up to the sun deck for our first dive briefing with the rest of the group.  Arek, the dive coordinator, congratulated us and we got a round of applause, which I thought we certainly deserved.  The way the dive briefing works is Arek shows a map of the dive site, with the orientation and location of the boat drawn in.  Then he describes a recommended route, noting along the way what we might see at each point (coral, fish, turtles, etc.), and gives compass headings.  We were at "Gordon's Mooring" on Flynn Reef.  (By the way, you can see maps of all these dive sites on the ProDive website.)

As it turns out, our first self-guided dive was one of the most complex navigationally.  Needless to say, we got a bit lost.  Jack was the lookout for this dive, and he saw me poke my head up a bunch of times.  That was partly because I didn't know where I was, but also partly by accident.  If you take too deep of a breath, or if you hold your breath even for a bit, you will start to ascend (buoyancy, remember).  As you ascend, the air in your BCD expands, and you become even more buoyant.  It's a bit of a vicious cycle, and if you're not very deep you can be on the surface before you have time to correct for it.  Many parts of this dive site were pretty shallow, so this happened to me a lot. You're supposed to give the OK signal to the boat (a hand on the head) before going back down so they know you're not drowning, so Jack saw me about four times.  Better him seeing it than another instructor, because at least he knows I'm a noob.

Anyways, we dove as a foursome, which was a mistake.  Ben and I kept getting separated from Ivo and Dave, and then we had to backtrack to find them.  We were going in circles.  We all started to run out of air before we were nearly done with the dive.  That was a bit annoying, because we would have seen a 120-year-old sea turtle and some sharks.  Oh well.  We did see some pretty awesome fish and beautiful coral, though, so it wasn't a total waste.  Because some of us were close to out of air, and its not advisable to keep diving with less that 50 bar, we snorkeled back to the boat along the surface.  In hindsight, it would have been much easier to dive, but snorkeling was the safer option.

At our debrief with Jack, we discussed our confusion and decided it would be better to go as twos from now on.  Still, even with getting lost and running out of air, I think that was a pretty successful first dive.  Even though we were low on air, we actually got almost 40 minutes of bottom time (you use much less air at shallower depths because it's dispensed at constant volume... remember basic gas chemistry?).

After dinner we had a bit of free time.  I went up to the top deck and saw the most spectacular sunset.

Some things are only describable with a picture.

Dive #6

Our next dive was also at Gordon's.  But if was different because it was a night dive.  You haven't really scuba dived until you've done it at night.  It's so cool.  Certain species are much more active at night, including sharks, so the same reef can seem completely different.  Everything was sort of quiet and peaceful, and I felt very calm and comfortable in the dark.

In order to not get lost, we each had a glow stick attached to the top of our tanks.  Jack came down do guide the four of us, which was very helpful because navigating in the dark is even harder.  We were also equipped with flashlights.  When we jumped in we could see sharks circling the boat.  These were no baby sharks, they were all two or three meter reef sharks.  I was so excited.  Believe it or not, it's really not scary to be down there surrounded by sharks, provided you're not bleeding.

Night diving has a few of its own signals since many of the daylight ones don't work in low visibility or with only one hand (you need one hand to point the flashlight at the other hand so people can see).  The most fun one was telling Jack how much air we had.  We were instructed to get his attention when we had 100 bar left, which you do by waving your light across his.  Then, since the 100 bar requires two hands (you make a big T with both hands for "tank"), when he looks at you you get to give him the middle finger.  Apparently that's Jack's own method, so we were instructed not to do it to others in the future.

We spent a good five minutes hanging onto the rope near the surface just watching the sharks and the big red bass swim around.  Then we descended further to explore.  We didn't see that much, I must say.  It tended to be single fish rather than whole schools, but there was plenty down there.  Spotting fish and other creatures became kind of like a game, and we would point out interesting things by circling them with our flashlights.

Another thing you can do with the flashlight is "play God."  If you point your light at a small fish, the hungry bigger fish--like, say, red bass--will charge at it.  You then have a choice to make.  If you move the light at the last second, the fish will charge full-speed and smash into the reef (they're really not too bright).  If you keep the light on the fish, you get to witness a fish feeding.  You get to decide the fate of the innocent little fish.  I must admit I chose the second option by accident.  I had my light on a cool fish a bit in the distance, and before I knew it I saw the bigger fish in the corner of my eye.  Before I had time to react, chomp, he was history.  Oh well, it's all part of the food chain.

The night dive was an unforgettable experience.  I hope it wasn't my last.

Day 3: 11 April

We did three dives on our last day.  Because we had to squeeze them all into the morning/early-afternoon in order to return to Cairns by 4:30, we had quite short surface intervals.  It basically felt like every time we got out of the water and rinsed off it was time to jump back in again.  But hey, I'm not complaining.  I would stay under all day if I could.

Dive 7

This was our last dive at Gordon's.  We were in the water before 6:30, and I was tired, but somehow you find magic energy for diving.  As we decided after the navigational mixup on dive five, Ben and I dove without David and Ivo.  The first part of the route was pretty deep (in fact the floor was below our limit), and it takes Ben a while to descend because he tends to have trouble equalizing, but eventually we made it to depth and were able to start.  This time we were adement about communicating well and sticking to the plan in order to see a lot and not get lost.  And we certainly accomplished that.

One of the coolest things I saw on this dive was a sleeping shark.  There was another little shark floating above it, which I presume was its offspring.  I wanted to get a closer look, but then common sense prevailed and I decided it was probably best not to risk startling the guy at the top of the food chain.  So I stayed at a comfortable distance.

Around the corner from the shark was a turtle eating breakfast.  It's really cool how they eat.  (A lof of fish do it the same way).  They basically ram their heads into the coral, and whatever comes out they basically suck up.  It's not the most dignified way to take a meal, but it works and it's entertaining.  I got pretty close to this guy, and tried to hold out a piece of coral for him to snack on, but he wasn't very interested in me.  Oh well.

This isn't the same exact turtle, but he was very similar.  (This one was actually from the same site yesterday.)

This was one of my favorite dives because I really started to feel like an experienced scuba diver.  I was controlling my buoyancy really well, I was using air really slowly, and I was navigating flawlessly (although there weren't many directions on this one).  We got 41 minutes of bottom time.  I'm getting good at this.

Dive 8

When we were all out of the water from the first dive the boat moved to our last site, "Coral Gardens."  The actual reef was in the best condition at this site, and the coral was incredible.  (Sadly, many other sites have damaged coral from too much diving.)  This one had coral blanketing the entire sea floor.

Ben and I went down with our new friends Jason (a 26-year old college student from Arizona doing a semester in Sydney who, before school, did a tour in the navy as a nuclear reactor technician on an aircraft carrier) and Amir (the other Passover-observing Jew on the boat, a law student doing a semester abroad on the Gold Coast).  We were guided by Josh, a divemaster candidate who had been with us on many of our other training dives.  Apparently he knows this site pretty well, and he showed us some amazing things.  I didn't really pay attention to my compass because Josh was taking us in circles.  Way cool.

I was a bit nervous about my air consumption before this dive because I really didn't want to seem like a noob in front of these already experienced divers, but I did fine.  In fact, I think Jason came back with less than me.  I was using air so slowly until the very end, when there was a strong head current and I had to work hard.

Before surfaced we took a short detour to see some huge fish on the other side of the boat.  I forget the name of the fish, but it was massive (about the size of a child) and had a really ugly face (in a cool way) with puffy lips and a big forehead.

Dive 9

After what felt like a million dives (in a good way), the last one finally came.  We were still at Coral Gardens, but with a different route this time.  We went down with Jason and Amir again (I guess we formed a crew).  Since Jason and I use air faster, we were buddies so Ben and Amir could stay under longer if they wanted.  Another random woman was also in our group, and she actually ran out of air really quickly and Amir went up with her.  (He wasn't happy about it, and it turned out to all be a communication mixup, but whatever.)

For this last dive Ben and I rented a camera.  The plan was to just take a photos of everything.  So I did.  Since you can't zoom with an underwater camera, I had to hover really close to the coral to get some shots.  The underwater photography is really fun.  Finally on this dive we saw Nemo!  Actually, technically this was a regular anemofish and Nemo is a clown anemofish (clownfish), but they look very similar.  (Actual clownfish are a bit brighter and lighter in color.)  Anemofish live safely in anemones, which are usually toxic to other fish, because they are coating in a slimy protein film so the anemone doesn't harm them.  (That's why, if you remember from the movie, Nemo swims back to the wiggly anemone for protection.)

And now, feast your eyes...

Some of the fish really camouflage with the coral. 

Needless to say, a giant clam.

Can you spot the two characters from Finding Nemo in this picture?

[More photos to come...]

We always tried to identify the species we saw on the poster on the sun deck, but it wasn't always easy.  One of the things I would have done differently was to go to Reef Teach, a manie biology lesson in Cairns, but it wasn't open the day before we left.  It would have been nice to know what I was looking at beforehand, though.

The trip back to Carins was an adventure.  The skipper, "Captain Africa," joked that he would make the return trip very bumpy because one of the girls was a New Zealand All-Blacks rugby fan, the arch rival of his beloved South African Springbocks.  (Please, as if any of us actually know anything about rugby!)  I know it wasn't actually his doings, but the waves were crazy; it's a really good thing I took a pill.  At some points the boat was literally tilted at 45 degrees, and I was convinced it would capsize.

I went up to the sun deck to avoid getting sea sick.  During one of the huge waves, the gate in the railing swung open.  An eleven-year old boy (who somehow had over 50 dives under his belt) was laying on the deck, and he started rolling towards the open gate.  He caught himself before going overboard, and then decided to try and close the gate.  I decided it would be a good idea to hold on to this fearless little guy, so i wrapped my arm around him while he tried to muscle it closed.  If he had actually been asleep we might have had a legitimate man overboard.  I must say, this is another one of those times when we learn that the safety standards in Australia are not as strict as they are back home.  Buy hey, that just adds to the charm.

When we got back to the marina we gave all the instructors and boat crew a huge thanks.  They really were incredible.  Then we went back to the dive shop to pay our reef tax, and we were off.  We didn't have to do goodbyes because that wasn't our last time seeing everyone...

Sticking with the ProDive tradition, we all met up for dinner at a bar/restaurant later that day.  Of course, I couldn't eat much, and I couldn't trink beer (boo hoo).  Basically the only things I could have were french fries and tequila (yay).  Jack bought Ben and I each a drink, which was a very nice gesture which I realized afterwards I should have reciprocated.  I guess he liked us, probably because we weren't actually far from his age.  We also met his girlfriend, who just so happens to be from Boston (well, actually, Franklin, but who's counting).  After the restaurant we all moved on the the Woolshed, which is the most popular bar in Cairns. I's full of backpackers, and it gets pretty rowdy.  For the sake of keeping this blog relatively appropriate, I'll leave it to your imagination what really happened, but I have video evidence of the shenanigans if you're really interested.

As you can probably tell, this dive trip was the experience of a lifetime.  It's the highlight of Australia so far.  The Great Barrier Reef is truly one of the most beautiful places on this planet, and I encourage everyone to come see while it's still here.

Tomorrow morning we are going to pick up the campervan for part two of our Australian east coast journey.  Can't wait.  For now, it's another night at Corona Backpackers.  Stay tuned!