I was up by 8 this morning to go to the beach club for white chocolate chip or banana pancakes with JD, Angie, Tracy, Ashley, Mike and Craig even though the bus was leaving for Byron SCUBA at 9.Well, as we finished our beach walk we discovered that it wasn’t even open, so we debated for a moment and decided to go to the bakery in town.
Tracy and I power-walked there—knowing that I had only moments to spare in order to get back on time. So we got there and shoved a chocolate muffin and iced coffee down our throats before the rest of the crew even got there. I ran halfway home, wearing flip flops and a jean skirt in fear of being late for the bus. I got there very hot and sweaty but with time to spare; I was ready to go before one of the guys was even out of bed actually.
So Sundive picked us up and we went into Byron to the shop. It was one very long day. 9am-6:30pm. I enjoyed it a lot of first, in part because I was good at things and as you know…like to make competition. We wore full wetsuits in the pool so it got pretty hot. We learned how to assemble/dissemble all of our gear, techniques such as finding a lost mask putting it back on and clearing it, taking off all of your gear underwater and putting it back on (my least favorite… it also was the last thing we did), buddy breathing and many more things. However we had to get dive medicals that were scheduled for 3:30 so everything was in a rush. We had one 10 minute bathroom break. But no lunch until after our medicals. We were all pretty much dead after being in the pool that long-breathing out of a tank.
I was very excited about becoming certified, but my ears were already popping in the 6 feet of water and by the end of the day my entire body was feeling it. I’m hoping my thoughts about not liking SCUBA are just because we had very long day- many tedious things and “not getting anything from it.”
Anyway, we have a bit more to learn in the pool and then we will do ocean dive 1 of 4 for our certification probably next Friday.
Oh ps, I got sick after I got home from SCUBA. The ride back to camp I tried to keep my gaze forward out the window. I think it was a combination of being exhausted, motion sickness, and probably a little dehydration. It was not fun. So I took an hour nap.
Tonight Cabin 2 + myself, Craig and Courtney tried to plan out our diving trip to Cairns (The Great Barrier Reef) for some weekend in March (I clearly pay a lot of attention.) It is going to be one pricey trip. We have to ride a bus from here to Ballina, a greyhound from Ballina to Brisbane and then fly to Cairns. Then the boys decided that the best plan was to do a day trip of 3 dives. I'm a little frightened of this...in part because thats a lot of diving for a beginner, and also thats an entire day on a rocky ocean boat. Add in hostel fees and food…we’re looking at 700+ bucks for a weekend. But its something you’ve got to do in the land down under…and I worked over break, I guess. Haha.
Plans to Sydney are also needing to be worked out and perhaps Melbourne as well.
On the way back to the lodge tonight we stopped to lay in the grass and look at the stars. I wish I knew more about them, not that I haven’t learned constellations 10 million times, but I find it difficult to remember.
Getting all of our equipment together..our 2 instructors on the right
A group of 8 of us went for our first confined water dives
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