How ya goin’, Mate?
This past week, we embarked on our long awaited scuba/snorkel adventure in the Great Barrier Reef. For those of you who don’t know, the Great Barrier Reef, located of the coast of Queensland is the largest coral system on Earth. It can even able to be seen from space! When it comes to scuba diving the Great Barrier Reef is widely regarded as one of the best locations, so we were all super stoked!
For those able to scuba dive, the week started off with the in-class portion of the open-water scuba certification at the Cairns City Dive Centre. For this part we spent two days in a classroom with a scuba instructor watching instructional scuba videos, taking quizzes and taking our scuba skills to the pool. Once we passed a series of in pool skills and tests, and we passed the final exam, we were ready to take our skills to the ocean.
After a two hour boat ride from Cairns we arrived at the Kangaroo Explorer, the vessel that would be our home for the next twenty four hours. After a heaping lunch, we set out on our first Great Barrier Reef scuba/snorkel section. While the snorkelers enjoyed a leisurely swim around the reef, with exception of the already certified members of our group, the divers did their training dives with the scuba instructor. The training dives were basically short dives to demonstrate that you could complete the same skills learned in the pool in the water. It was definitely a nerve wracking experience for all the new divers, but as soon as we saw all the fish our worries disappeared.
After our first dives, we had dinner. After dinner, the pre-certified members of our group had the opportunity to do a night-dive. The night dive was unbelievable. We were scared at first at the thought of diving in the pitch black darkness, but the minute that we jumped in the water, we definitely felt a sense of peace and calmness. It was really weird to be completely surrounded by darkness- there are few moments in our lives that we have the opportunity to float almost in darkness and be there just with our thoughts. But after a few moments we switched on our flashlights and swam around next to a big coral head. We saw a couple sharks (from further away), a giant clam, a moray eel, a stingray and tons of other little fish. It was a completely unforgettable night.
The next day, the dive/snorkel fiesta continued. There were five snorkel sessions available throughout the day and three scuba sessions for the divers. With two more training dive sessions all of our trainee divers were officially certified! Woo woo! For the final scuba session, the divers embarked on their first independent buddy dive. It was truly an amazing dive experience in the quiet underwater world, complete, with elaborate corals, sea cucumber, vibrantly colored fish, jelly fish and sea turtles.
-Rafael