The Dive, Part 2

April 8 Part deuce

Warning, if you haven't read part 1 first go down to the blog below and read it first.

So I left you guys hanging at the part where we prepared for our night dive. But before I get into this I need to tell everyone the rules of the dive boat.

Rule #1 don’t go deeper than your certified depth (for me 18 meters)

Rule #2 if this is your second dive of the day, don't go deeper than your deepest depth on your last dive

Rule #3 do not allow your air pressure to drop bellow 50 Bar

Night Dive Rules

Number 1 Do not drop bellow 10 meters

Number 2 Dive times do not exceed 30 minutes, return to surface before 30 minutes

Number 3 If one person's torch (Flashlight) goes out, dive is abandoned and everyone returns to boat.

Punishment for breaking any of these rules: Vegemite.

Now if none of you have ever had vegemite let me explain to you what you are missing out on. Vegemite is made from mushrooms, beats, rotten eggs, tree bark, and mud. You mix it all together and then let it rot for 2 weeks in the hot humid weather. It is then compacted down using people who have just finished a 3 month jungle trek through the rainforest and forgot to wash their feet, they then stomp the concoction for 48 hours squeezing all the water and good flavor out of it. Then add about 1 ton of salt for every 100kg of other stuff. Now that you understand the fine taste of vegemite, you will understand my reluctance to break a whole lot of rules. So if you get caught breaking any of these fine rules you get a table spoon of vegemite, if you beak 3 you get the whole jar, and if you break all the rules on one dive, you eat the 5 liter bucket, and trust me the plastic casing is the best part. Now that you understand these simple things let me get back to the night dive. Jayne guided Chris and myself along with 3 other people for the night dive (which was now free as we were certified divers). We all carried underwater torches, and knowing the rules set off in a group towards the reef. We started our decent and within 2 minutes had broken our first nighttime rule, as I didn't notice my depth gauge reach 11.7m, until it was way to late. Cursing my mistake as I could already taste the horrid stuff but I decided that I would deal with the vegemite problem when I got back to the boat. Well we swam along the reef and I have to admit, the night dive is spectacular. It is so cool holding a flashlight and illuminating the darkness, seeing how the fish suddenly appear out of now are. The coral actually glows a different color, it is spectacular. Then there is the eyes, most crey fish have red eyes, so you see them glowing back at you. Then there are the green eyes, these are the most spectacular things to see, because these green eyes are actually shark eyes. And sure enough I saw 6 of these that night, one right when I jumped in the water, I shone my torch down and saw a grey nurse shark right bellow my feet. The other 2 sharks were hanging around the reef, but the guy who stole the show was a 1.2m barracuda. Barracuda are long, narrow, fish, but they are incredibly inquisitive and smart. They freak many new divers out because they love to stalk and follow you around. At night though they get way smarter, and way creepier. When they encounter a dive team at night they start to follow you around purposefully, and here is why. I was swimming along about 15min into the dive session when I do a spin maneuver to shine the light behind me to see if there are any reef sharks or stuff hanging around. I had done it like 20 times before with no luck, but then well my light came to be pointing into the face of a 1.2m barracuda. I will readily admit my heart may have skipped a couple of beats, and my eyes popped out of my dive masks with all the force of an atomic bomb, but other than that I was fine. Well we looked at each other for a few minutes, before I decide to pretend like he wasn't there, as he wasn't being aggressive at all. I continued on swimming for a few seconds and just got comfortable with my new dive buddy when my torch found a small little fish swimming in the dark. For just a brief second my torch blinded the little fish, which is when the hand of death came tearing over my left shoulder with the speed of an angry tornado and grabbed the little fish. I will once again admit that my heart may have been bouncing around my rib cage like a bouncy ball. When I got back on board later I found out that this was a regular occurrence with the barracuda, something that I would have loved to know earlier. For the rest of the dive I hung close to the rest of the group, which is when we broke night dive rule number 3. I went to count torches, as there should be 5 plus mine, and I could only count 4. This is when Jayne tapped me on the shoulder and showed me her dead torch, so I took lead of the group for the remainder of the dive, with Jayne’s wonderful guidance as nobody wanted to cut the dive short. I have to admit I liked leading the group and when we surfaced it was I who had to signal to the boat with my torch that everything was good. On the swim back to the boat Jayne asked me how deep I had gone. "10 meters I replied" she nodded her head, "I am glad to hear that as my depth gauge read 10 and you were way below me, my depth gauge must be out." I, sensing danger replied "Ya, you should really get that checked when we get back to the boat." She leaned closer to me and replied "You don't tell anyone on the dive deck about my dead torch, and I will confirm your 10 meter depth." and just like that I avoided getting vegemite for that dive. Well the next morning we moved to a reef called the 3 Sisters (see below) and I got ready for my last three dives before 1:00 when I board the Upchuck Express and head back to Cairns. The fist dive I was up bright and early for again at 5:30 for the briefing on the 6:00 dive. We hit the water and swam out to sister number 1 (due north of the boat) and descended down to 17.9m. Well it was a really cool dive seeing all of the amazing coral formations and all of the really cool fish that swam around it, even saw Nemo. Well we had a good time, but when our oxygen hit 80 bars we headed back to the boat. We swam for quite a long while until we hit the mooring line of the boat and then came to the surface. This is when I got the surprise of the dive. I came up and discovered it was the wrong boat. Now something all dive boats have is looks outs, these look outs have 2 purposes for existing, 1 is that if you get into trouble you can get their attention and they will get you help. However they also act as the people who report to the dive boss who sucks at navigating and had to swim 100m on the surface back to his dive boat because he was an idiot and went to the wrong boat. Well I came up looking at a very confused look out on this boat when he signaled me asking if everything was ok. I signaled back yes, before turning to look back at my boat 100m NW, and at my look out standing on the bow. Luckily he was looking the other way, as he was probably thinking the same thing I was, only an idiot would swim past the boat without noticing. I immediately dropped back bellow the surface and started swimming hard back towards my own boat. I looked at my air gauge, I only had 51bar, but there was no way that I was going to swim back that far on the surface. I was dancing a fine line between pride and vegemite. I hit 48bar and popped up only 10 meters from the dive deck, now my only problem was how would I pass off 48 bar as 50, because if I got busted my pride would look like my face when I swallow that horrific stuff. Luckily the dive boss just asked for my pressure and didn't personally read my gauge, so I avoided vegemite again. Breakfast was once again baked beans, tinned spaghetti, oatmeal and for once eggs, but I just had fruit again. During breakfast I told Brisbane (an experienced diver I met on the boat ride out) about my botched dive that morning and he burst out laughing and he mentioned that he was planning on hitting the first sister at 8:00. So at 8:00 we were back in the water and this time we aimed for sister 3 strait west of the boat, but there was one heck of a current on the surface so we descended and started swimming for the reef, or should I say into the dark gloom where we thought the reef was. After several minutes of swimming I was starting to get worried, which is when I looked at my depth gauge. It read 19.7m, not only had I gone deeper than my last dive, but I was nearly 2 meters deeper than my certified depth, I just broke 2 rules at once. This also meant that I was using a lot more air than usual at shallower depth. As I came up to 17 meters I looked out and just spotted the reef. We swam around it in a corkscrew manner, circling our way up and at the top I knew that we should find a buoy line. That is when I realized I wasn't on sister number 3, because there wasn't a buoy line. I surfaced as I didn't want a repeat of this morning blunder when I discovered we had actually been swimming on the middle sister (number 2). How we got to that one I still am trying to work out. We swam back to the boat and I was able to pass off my dive depth at 17m and avoided a double helping of vegemite. My dive time however was a dismal 18 minutes, compared to the usual 30 I can pull off. I went up to the sun deck to grab my towel and dry off when I looked towards the other dive boat and saw a familiar white haired head bobbing in front of it. Then the face turned and started swimming towards my boat. As it got closer I started to laugh as it was Brisbane, he had made the exact same navigational error I had made in the morning. I couldn't help but bugging him when he got on deck, as he had laughed at me for doing the exact same thing. At 9:30 we moved dive sites for the last time, and in preparation for my last dive. On the way over we were served lunch which was pasta, and then later the Tuna that was caught the night before. Now I have had a lot of tuna while I have been over here(mostly of the canned variety), but this tuna, fresh off the fish and cooked to perfection was one of the best things I have eaten in Australia. It was mouth watering enough for me to forgive the chef for his earlier failures at breakfast. The fish flew off the buffet much to fast though, as I was only able to squeeze out three helping of it before it was gone. I can't right remember what else was for lunch, but the fish was by far the highlight of lunch. We then went for our last dive, where we circled a reef and were able to swim into one of the caves where I came face to face with a very large and angry lobster, and his bunk mate a sting ray who I had nearly swam over. Actually I swam over him on the way in, then over him again on the way out (maybe about a foot above him, as I couldn't see him buried in the sand) but this must have made him angry as he then stuck his stinger in the air in a threatening manner at Chris who was right behind me......whoops. Swimming through the underwater caves was really cool, the fish swimming around you, really cool. The dive ended way to early, but as a bonus we successfully navigated back to the boat under water without getting lost this time, a very fine way to end the day. We boarded the day boat back to Cairns and said goodbye to all the wonderful people we had met there, and hung on to our packs as well as lunch for the return trip to Cairns. We returned to the hostel where we checked in and ran into one of the girls who had worked on the boat and had gotten off yesterday. I sat down with her and we chatted over a couple of beers and then she played the ukulele for a few minutes. Something she was very good at, that or I have been listening to Christian and his guitar way to much. She was from Michigan and she had one of those cool personalities that had me laughing all night long. Quote of the night "My last boyfriend and I just didn't get along, he was just to normal". Well everyone that is all from Cairns for now, will leave tomorrow and head south towards Sydney, not sure where we are going to stop next, will see.

Adam,