Wet Cairns & Diving

Now that we escaped from the neverending winter season and arrive in Cairns, the poured for 3 days in a row. People did tell us that Cairns has two seasons: hot & wet or hot & dry. Unfortunately, for the first 3 days we were there, there was no sign of sunshine.

Luckily for Ginnie she signed up for an open water dive course to get her PADI license. Not so lucky for me I was stuck in the Cairns with the bad weather and practically nothing to do.

I couldn't wait for the rain to stop and see some sunshine which didn't happen until Ginnie finished her dive course and we had signed up for 5 day live aboard Taka and go diving.

Since I felt a bit rusty about diving, I decided to join Ginnie on her last day of her dive course and do a refresher. I signed up for 2 dives before we did the live aboard the boat for 5 days. The truth is that I didn't want to be embarrassed before we were started our advanced dive course with Taka. I felt it would make sense to know the basics before we started the advanced course.

Anyhow, it was a bad idea because the boat took about an hour and half to get to the dive site and the sea was very choppy. Since I don't have my sea legs, I was sick the entire time. The boat rocked like it was going out of style. I threw up like 4 times even before we got to the dive site.

I was excited to go and dive with Ginnie though. I was nervous at the same time because I didn't know if I would be able to do the basics of diving. The last time I had dived was in Thailand in 2006 when I got certified for my PADI open water certificate.

Gin's instructor, Chris, was really cool and allowed me to join their group for the dive. The bad part was that the moment I put on the gear, it was obvious that I had forgotten everything about diving. Plus being sick ofcourse didn't help. Thanks to Gin, she helped me with doing the basic "buddy check" and taught me an easy phrase I can remember to do the buddy check. The phrase is, "Blonde Women Really Are Fun", translates to B as in BCD check, W as in weight check, R as in releases chek, A as in air check and F as in final ok.

The crazy thing was that the was before we got in the water. I totally forgot to hold my mask and regulator with one hand and keep the other hand on the weight before jumping off the boat. Once I got in the water, I wasn't using the BCD correctly and Chris got totally frustrated with me trying to put air in the BCD when I wasn't suppose to. The worse part about scuba diving is that you can't communicate well under water. So it's really had to understand when someone is telling you something.

As if that wasn't enough to get me nervous already, once we got to the bottom, I realised that I had gotten nervous along the way and got my self worked up. That meant I was breathing super heavy under the water and couldn't catch my breath. It took me about 3 minutes before I felt comforable again under the water. Fortunately, I did pass the basic skill test of clearing the mask and doing the bouyancy test. Again, once we came back to the surface, I forgot to give the ok signal. Once we got back on the boat, I was throwing up again. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to go for my 2nd dive.

When Chris came back on the boat, he was furious that most of the people didn't do what he had expected them to do. He was especially mad at me because I was a certified diver. Ofcourse, he had a good laugh once he found out that I was certified in Thailand. Before, I knew, we were getting ready again to go back in the water. I decided to go as well. Unfortunately, the entire time it was raining and the visibility was pretty poor. There wasn't much you could see underwater because of that, but I figured I was getting practice diving besides the fact that I had paid $150 for those two dives.

The second dive was a much better dive because I felt a lot more comfortable and relaxed. This time I didn't even wait to get back on the boat before getting sick. I threw up soon as we got back to the surface. The night before the dive, Gin & I went to Reef Teach, a 2 hour crash course on marine biology. The marine biologist told us that it's perfectly ok to puke in the sea because it's rarely that the fishes get a warm meal. The funny thing is that she was absolutely right. I was quickly surrounded by fishes and they "took care" of the puke. My apologies if this is TMI. I thought it was pretty funny.

After my last dive, which was Gin's 4th dive, she was a certified open water diver. The entire group got together at night to celebrate. Chris, Johnny, Julian, the Canadian guys, Ada, Fabio, Flavio, Gin & I. It was a lot of fun hanging out at Rattle-N-Hum and then at Rhino Bar. I wish I had taken my camera to capture some of the funny moments.