Picture the worst hangover of your life. Multiply that by 100.

Me after my last dive. Struggles, but still lovin it.

we're certified baby!!! so hot.....hahaha

Charlotte

view from the lounge

Hello again from Cairns!

I just experienced the most amazing 6 days of my life. Pretty much. Wow. I am still swaying from the boat and I am practically deaf in both ears. YES!

Day 1: Open water dive course

So the first day was spent in class taking a medical and learning about diving all over again. It was pretty boring but we had a good group. We did about 3-4 hours in the pool doing diving skills like taking off your mask, taking out your regulator and finding it again, taking off your buoyancy compensator (BC). We had to do a lot of swimming and fitness stuff so our instructor knew we could swim. Tiring day, but fun. We had to do 5 chapters of homework. I'm pretty sure I was the only one that actually did it. Though I already did it last year so it was kind of a joke! But everyone copied off me in the morning which was hilarious and deja -vu'd back to university.

Day 2: Open water dive course exam

Second day started at about 7am, got bused to the pool and looked at more of the DVD and finished our homework. We took up the answers and wrote the exam. 48/50, because apparently I think feet are metres. No big deal. Everyone passed and we spent another 4 hours in the pool in the deep end perfecting our skills and ascent rate. My partner was Charlotte, she's from Denmark and is half-inuit. Her dad is from Greenland, so we talked about polar bears and cold weather. Haha. She's a city girl now though, but joked about living in Greenland. Her boyfriend was getting his Advanced Diver as well and we later met him on the boat. Once we all passed our skills and exams we finally went home and packed up for the liveaboard boat. I did my advanced diving so I was on the boat for 4 days 3 nights.......

After the course I went and bought a prescription mask and snorkel and got free fins from the shop which was a good deal. A couple of the people in the course and I went to "Reef Teach" where they teach you all about what you will find, what not to touch and what will kill you. After that we went out to a pub and had some dinner and beer. Didn't really party much as we knew we would be diving all day the next day. But still had some fun.

Day 3: The Hangover from HELL.

So the day started off famously. Had all my stuff packed up and ready to roll. We got onto the dayboat Sunkist for a 2 hour ride to the big boat Kangaroo Explorer which stays out on the reef all the time. We got out to the barrier reef and things got a bit rocky. I'd eaten some ginger pills that are supposed to help sea sickness...

Got a little woozy but figured it was nothing. Finally we docked up with the Kangaroo Explorer and got shown around. Our rooms were really nice, I had a 2 bunker to myself with my own bathroom. Which later proved to be quite useful. We went up to the sundeck and had a breifing about the reef. Our first dive would be at 1pm. We went downstairs and had some lunch before changing and getting into our stinger suits. You have to wear these lycra dive suits that look like you're from startreck because of the jellyfish. Sexy. Anyways, I was starting to feel unwell. The swaying of the boat apparently got to me. I got my gear ready and jumped in. We went down to 15metres and did some skills. Didn't see to much as it was just our first dive. Came up and as soon as I got back on the boat my hangover from hell started. Basically puked from 2 that day until 7 the next night. Worse/best day of my life. I ran into my room and puked probably 30+ times. Very very fun. Then went back out for another dive at 4pm. These dives are manditory as I was trying to get my 4 dives to get certified as an open diver. I really liked diving though because as soon as I got down underwater, the puking feeling was gone. If only I could have stayed down there!! On one dive I was puking in the water, though by this point I had nothing in my stomach. I know this all sounds very appetizing. I went to bed early and didn't eat that night. Sleeping was great, feels like your mom is rocking you to sleep and the seasickness stopped.

Day 4: Recovery...until the storm.

Woke up feeling okay, but my stomach had that heart beating feeling as if it had been through a lot, which it had. I was told to take seasickness pills as soon as I got up before I felt sick. Unfortunately I took them, and puked them up. Then dove at 6am. Great dive, don't remmeber much, but it was the dive where you have to prove all of your skills and pass the open water course. Luckily I feel better underwater. I passed came up and tried to eat some breakfast. Later puking up the two hashbrowns I ate. Our 8am dive was the passing dive, meaning we got to show our cards underwater in a movie, a guy with a camera filmed us all day above and below water. It was pretty cool. We put on aviators underwater and pretended to drink a VB beer, I shotgunned mine. Hahaha. Representing T-Bay. Then we got to do some kung-fu/matrix fighting which was later sped up. Charlotte and I had some really good ones. First was me pushing her and her flying backwards, then she shot me and I matrixed backwards. The movie is sped up so it makes it look much better than in slowmotion underwater. Then we got our SSI cards underwater and smiled and cheered. We then went on a bit of a dive, where there is film of us all diving with fish and coral. We later watched the movie and bought it. I sent mine to my dad and mom at home, hopefully they will be able to recognize me under my mask and stinger suit haha. That night I was feeling a lot better and actually ate! Wooop!

But then a storm came. Yes. A giant storm. This night was our Night Dive. We jumped in the water at about 8pm, pitch black with our flashlights. Above water was like a perfect storm, underwater was pristine. We saw a moray eel and dove around for about 30minutes. By the time we came up, the storm had gotten worse. The boat was rocking back and forth and took us about 20 minutes to get back on the boat. Everytime you tried to get on the boat on the ladder, the ladder would fly up out of the water with the boat and you would shoot off. My number one goal was not to die of a head injury. Finally we got on and got changed. This was the point I realized it was unbelievably rocky. I later lost my dinner and went to bed unimpressed. My head hurt and my stomach ached, but I slept through the storm and woke up at 530am.

Day 5: Adaptation

I woke upat 530 for my first deep water dive at 6am. We went down to 26metres and it started to get cold. I didn't feel sea sick at all. Greatest day. We went down to the bottom of the ocean and suddenly realized we lost one person. He had surfaced and we had to abort the dive. Great. Good start to the day!!

Had breakfast for the first time in what felt like weeks. Then went down and did a deep dive again at 8am. It was beautiful. The reef we dove was the size of a 3 story building and we just circled around and around it. Each time seeing more and more animals. We surfaced and chilled out until 11am.

I got a new dive partner, Kris from england. Charlotte was diving with her boyfriend now that she was certified. We went on the 11am dive and learned navigation with compasses. Our dive instructor took us through some really wicked caves and holes in the reef. The entire class (there were 8 of us at this point) ran out of air except for Kris, me and Charlotte's boyfriend Dreis. So the 3 of us went with our instructor through the coolest caves ever. Some of them were so small you had to scrape your way through them! I got some of my hair ripped out on a seafan and cut up our hands on the reef when trying to squeeze through. Some of them were bigger and the sun came through them and you popped up through a hole at the top of a 3 story reef! Best dive.

Everyone that was leaving that day left at about 230, which included my dive partner Charlotte and her boyfriend. We said goodbye and decided to meet the next night when I got off the boat. Kris and I were staying another night to do our advanced diver course. We had to do some marine identification and learn how to use our dive computers. We did a dive at 4pm that day. This was a very very memorable dive. We were just chilling in about 8metres of water looking at some of the reef when we saw a sea turtle! It was going pretty slow so I swam after it and we started rubbing its shell. Apparently they love this and its like scratching your dogs back. They do a "turtle dance" when they like being rubbed. Suddenly he started swaying in the water and bailed onto the reef haha. He wasn't looking where he was going because he was being scratched! We pet him a bit and kept going. Saw a bunch of stingrays and a white tipped shark. Lots of Nemo's, Dori's, giant clams, potato cod, parrot fish, blowfish....it goes forever. Pretty much we saw everything you could ever imagine on the reef. We were halfway through our air and so decided to turn around and go back to the boat. 5 minutes later I saw this little head coming towards us. The turtle was back for more! He came right up to me and stopped, asking for a scratch. So I scratched his back and tummy and head. He just floated there with his eyes closed in heaven. I held him in the water as Kris and I rubbed him and kept him in heaven. We started to run a little low on air and had to leave him. Sadly. I miss him already!

We surfaced and raved to everyone about our awesome dive. That night I actually ate dinner and kept it down, there as a beautiful sunset and I went to bed exhausted.

Day 6: Last day on the reef

Woke up at 530am to do a deep dive with Kris. We circled around a giant 3 story reef for about an hour. Once we got to the top we noticed this giant shadow above us. I looked up and thought it was a whale, clearly not as it's not whale season, but I freaked out and we looked up. It was a giant school of bumphead parrotfish! There were about 30 of them swimming together in a school above the giant reef. We went up and pretended to be in their school. They are about a metre long with giant beak-like teeth. They didn't even notice us and we got to touch them and swim with them. There was also a lot of other fish circling the entire reef hunting, it was like we were in a giant reef-party. And everyone was invited.

Our next dive was at 8am, we did the same thing but on another giant reef. We found a cave to go through that came up to the top of the reef, it was beautiful. Our last dive was at 11am after going to a new site. We dove with a bunch of new people that came on the boat that were advanced certified and could go as deep as us, so that was really fun. Went through another cave and surfaced. We had some lunch and waited for the dayboat to come pick us up.

At 3pm we headed back to Cairns, certifed as Advanced Divers and exhausted. I got back and went straight to Charlotte and Dreis' hostel where we decided to meet that night at 8pm. I went back to my hostel and slept until 8:05pm...oops! I woke up in a daze, apparently still thinking I was on the boat. The entire room was rocking like a boat. I was so confused. I then went and met Charlotte and Dreis and we went and had some free beer and pizza care of the dive company we went with! We stayed out for a bit, but were so exhausted had to go home a bit early.

Now I am just taking some time and chilling in Cairns. I'm thinking about heading up to Port Douglas to do some more diving, or go do some wreck diving. We will see what the funds allow.

I am partially deaf and still swaying, but had a great time, regardless of the puking! Haha.

LOVE

-Kat