To ensure I didn't just arrive and veg out, I had booked myself on a five day dive course in the Great Barrier Reef. First though, I had a day and a half to explore Sydney.
After arrival, it became apparent that the clothing I had on wasn't all that suitable. Wearing a wool top and thick woollen hiking socks was not going to cut it in Sydney, where the temperature was in the high 20's. Cairns (where the diving course was) was even worse, being about 30-35 degrees. Time to get some new socks and some swimming trunks. Whilst I was at it, a haircut would also help.
After I had all this sorted it was time to explore Sydney by night. I was staying in a backpacking hostel, with 6 people to a dorm and had been kindly invited out to a local bar by a promoter under the lure of free booze. Now, I don't know which business school the bar managers from the Kings Cross district in Sydney went to, but I hope it has since shut down. Almost every bar offers free booze, free entry, free pick-up and some even offer free food. No strings attached.
As you can imagine, this was rather appealing. We strolled from one bar to another, taking advantage of either one or two free drinks, before moving on to the next bar, again consuming the free drinks. Value for money wise, this was the best night out to be had anywhere!
Now that I had seen some of the night-life, it was time to see the sights Sydney has to offer. Historically, Australia is pathetic, especially when compared to the history of China, so I decided to focus on what it does better – sports and aquatic life.
Taking a guided cycle tour of the city, I picked up most of the “must do” sights of Sydney in little under six hours. Here I managed to befriend the two guides and spent the remainder of the evening with them, chatting about life in Sydney. One thing I had noticed from almost everyone that I had met – Sydney has sticky streets. Many people arrive for a short term event of activity and never leave. Before I was struck with the same disease, it was time to take in the aquarium to do some research on the fishes I would be seeing later, then departing to Cairns for the diving course.
Arriving in Cairns, it became apparent that it was a town focused on one thing only – diving. Every shop was related to diving or had diving in mind. Signing on for the diving course commencing the next day, it was time to ensure that I can pass the initial test.
To go diving, you first need to pass a swimming exam. Now, swimming is one of about two sports that I really don't like, the second being football. However, since the last time I went swimming, my personal fitness has vastly improved. In fact, the last time I went properly swimming, I think I was about 14 years old and struggled to make it past 100m. To pass the test, I had to swim 200m and float in the pool for 10 minutes. Gulp – literally.
Donning the new swimming trunks and looking rather spangly with my lack of tan fresh from the northern hemisphere, I jumped into the hostel pool and began to float. Timer started, I kicked around and flapped a little bit, after a while I rested into a nice rhythm. Getting a little tired, I looked at my watch, 7 minutes 48 seconds, TO GO. Oh dear. Luckily, at this point someone saw what I was doing and offered some advice. “Just float on your back and wiggle your arms”. This guy was a life-saver, so whoever you are, thank you so much.
Over the next five days, ten of us would learn how to dive, completing two separate courses and gaining both our “Open Water” and “Adventure Diver” PADI qualifications. The first qualification is what most people do, and allows you to dive to 18 metres, the second tags on another 12 metres, bringing it to a total of 30 metres. I had signed up to both as I really wanted the extra confidence the second course would give me.
After half a day in the classroom getting bored to tears by the most fundamental of dive videos (do you know that things less dense than water FLOAT? - WOW) it was time to go into the pool for our swimming test (which turns out was easy after the practise) and our first confined water session.
Setting up our diving gear as instructed, we all waddled into the pool, feeling about as graceful as an elephant asked to hop through an army assault course wearing a tutu. Once in the pool though, our huge SCUBA system was transformed from a weighty cumbersome object into a miraculous device. Putting the regulators into our mouths for the first time, we breathed in... yuck... plastic air!
Now it was time to submerge and try the same thing, just under water. The initial response of one's body is to fight the urge to breath in. You're under water after all, so you would normally be holding your breath. Once the initial panic was suppressed though, you soon became used to breathing in under water. This was strange, but it was also darn cool!
Over the next two days we would hone those skills, diving to the full depth of 4m the pool allowed and practising breathing from an alternative source and clearing one's mask after full removal. All these skills would become invaluable when we finally hit the sea, so practise in this environment was very useful. We were all paired up with someone, who would become our “buddy” if we got into issues, or ran out of air and needed to borrow some rather quickly. I was 'devastated' to be paired with officially the coolest of our crowd.
Before the end of the second day I was confident underwater with my kit. It was just like swimming, with the tiresome problem of breathing and holding breath taken away! Of particular fun was the joy of doing endless back-flips whilst underwater – I'm easily amused.
Completing our confined water section and the easiest written exam known to man, it was now time to jump aboard a boat and join some already qualified divers for our open water sessions – 8 dives in all. It's a hard life learning in the Great Barrier Reef, but someone has to do it! The only draw-back was the all in one "Smirf-Suit" which we wore to protect us from jellyfish.
Given that I was blown away by the whole process whilst in a pool with nothing to look at except for the tiles, you can imagine how happy I was to see some real scenery and fishes. Unfortunately for you though, we weren't allowed to take a camera on any training dives, which were all but one of our dives.
The practise continued as we completed our qualifications, gradually diving longer and deeper, whilst performing more technical tasks. On the final night though, there was a bit of a change. A night dive. Until this point, we hadn't seen any sharks - probably because sharks hunt mostly at night, being either docile, or asleep during the day. Most people would count their blessings at not seeing a shark, especially as there were two shark attacks in Sydney the week before I arrived. I really wanted to see a shark though, and I got my wish.
Now, if anyone has seen the film Aliens, whereby the marines all had puny little torches, which they were waving around frantically in the dark, searching for the aliens which were hunting them, you now know pretty much what a night dive with sharks is like. With our group of four people in the water, we dove into the pitch black water and quickly whipped our torches around, searching for the tell-tell signs of sharks; the reflection of their retinas...
Suddenly, the lead torch of our instructor stopped moving from side to side and seemed to “lock on” to a target. Through the gloom, the target grew larger and larger, until it came into clear view. A 2m reef shark. Luckily, humans aren't on the menu of that species!
Over the next 30 minutes we not only saw the sharks, but in a few moments of insanity, I actually joined my instructor in giving chase to a shark, in an attempt to touch it. Although I didn't succeed, getting within two metres of one of these creatures was close enough. Their power and grace is something that many other fish are still yet to acquire. I can see why they are top of the food chain – one I was very glad not to be part of.
With our trip drawing to a close, it was time to complete some final dives and paperwork before I was now officially qualified to dive to 30 metres. Hurray!
Back on land, and with what I thought was water in my ear, we had one final night celebrating our newly found diving qualification. Here at the very prestigious establishment of the “Woolshed”, we observed a wet t-shirt competition before dancing the night away like idiots. I even met someone who had trained with the military based in my home town of Poole, before discussing the intricacies of Australian special forces training – whilst drunk.
Bidding my buddies farewell, it was time to depart to the south with a view to taking a couple of days of sailing around some deserted islands.... little did I know that Mr Hamish would have other ideas...
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