This was the first day on the scuba liveaboard! We were up early, it was still dark outside when the alarm went off at 5:15. A quick peek outside showed that it was lightly raining, but we weren’t too worried about the weather as it was forecast to clear up later in the morning. We got dressed, packed up and checked out about 45 minutes later. It was still dark and wet while we waited for our transportation to the dive shop to appear. The dive shop had scheduled for us to be picked up shortly after 6:00, and a small minibus with the Pro Dive logo pulled up to the hotel right on time. The minibus that pulled up had seating for 11 people, however it did not have space in the back for bags so we stacked them up at the front, just behind the driver. We were the second pair of people being picked up so there was still space for our bags, however the bus made several more stops afterwards and by the time all eleven seats were full the bus was pretty packed. We were shuttled to the dive shop where final details were confirmed and gear was retrieved. After a short stop we loaded back up into the bus and were driven a couple blocks down to the pier where the boat we would be calling home for the next few days was docked.
At the pier our minibus pulled up to a mid-sized boat that had the Pro Dive logo on the back. We could see a few crew members getting some final things checked out as we got off the bus and boarded the boat. Once onboard we were greeted with a breakfast of cold cuts, cut fruit and pastries. As we ate breakfast we met some of the other divers joining us on the trip, as well as the crew. We learned that the boat was able to hold 31 divers, however this trip there were only 19 divers onboard so there was going to be a bit more space than usual. There was a short safety video we had to watch, and once that was complete the captain came down and gave us a pre-departure briefing. Our first dive site was about 35 nautical miles away from Cairns, and we were told that the boat would be travelling at about 10 knots, so we had a bit of a trip to make it out to the reef. We were informed that the weather was forecast to be windy and wet through the morning, so we were advised to take a seasickness pill as it was expected that the trip was going to be rough. Luckily Todd and I had each taken a Gravol before leaving the hotel, so we were prepared. With this said the briefing complete, so we cast off at 7:00 sharp.
The boat ride out to the first dive site was, as predicted, pretty rough. The first hour or so wasn’t too bad, as the coast provided us a fair bit of protection from the winds, however once we turned out to sea the waves picked up. We spent the majority of the trip on the upper deck, out at the back of the boat, where we had lots of fresh air and good views of the horizon. Several other guests joined us, and we got a chance to get to know some of the other divers a bit better. We had a pleasant chat with several guys as the boat rocked and rolled through the waves. There were times I felt that we were probably at a 45 degree angle to the horizontal, but in reality it probably wasn’t that extreme. We did have to hold on to the benches at all times lest we lose our balance and slide down the bench. We made it to the first dive site, on Milln Reef, shortly after 10:30. We went down to the main deck and got organized.
There were two ladies who were also completing their open-water checkout dives that were in our group, in addition to our instructor, Elena. We went through a quick pre-dive briefing, then got our equipment set up and put on all our gear. The water was not going to be cold, but we donned stinger suits to help provide protection against jellyfish. We learned that this is stinger season, so the suits weren’t really considered to be optional. That being said, the water was going to be warm enough that we didn’t need wetsuits. Once we were fully suited up and we had completed our buddy checks we got into the water (just after 11:00), and began the first of four checkout dives. Our dive began by descending to the ocean floor, at a depth of about 10 m, where we then performed several of the basic skills we had learned in the pool. We started by clearing a partially flooded mask, then recovering a lost regulator, both of which went smoothly. We then spent the remainder of our time underwater swimming amongst the coral and fish. We saw a Kuhl’s stingray, some Dory fish, and a bunch of coral. One interesting difference between our course and pool sessions and this dive was that here everything was done in metric, while in Canada the diving is conducted using Imperial measurements. The change wasn’t a major one, it just required some mental math to do the conversions between feet/metres and PSI/bar. Once we had reached about 70 bar of air remaining we conducted a 3 minute safety stop at 5 m then ascended to the surface. We didn’t immediately get back on the boat, however, instead we performed a couple of basic surface skills. Once we had completed the surface skills we got onto the boat, took apart and then reassembled our gear, and then dried off and headed inside for lunch.
Lunch was sandwiches with cold cuts and fruit, which we ate quickly. We didn’t have much downtime as our next dive was scheduled for 14:00, so after a quick recap of the previous dive with our instructor we headed back onto the deck to get our next dive set up. We donned our stinger suits and our gear, performed our buddy checks and then jumped back into the water right at 14:30. This dive started with us performing the Controlled Emergency Surface Ascent (CESA) from a depth of 6 m. The CESA requires that you ascend to the surface without oxygen while continually exhaling - if you are ever out of air under water this skill can help make sure you make it to the surface safely. Everyone completed this skill successfully on the first attempt; with this skill complete we descended to the bottom and then performed a mask fully flooded clearing exercise. We also practised being out of air and using the secondary regulator from our buddy, which also went smoothly. It was a bit uncomfortable to not have the regulator in your mouth when we were 10 m under water, but it’s better to know the feeling in a controlled exercise instead of figuring it out in a real emergency. These skills completed, we spent the rest of our time underwater exploring. We swam past an underwater coral formation that was shaped like a person-sized mushroom which was neat to see; we also saw a number of pretty fish. We ascended again after about 35 minutes, and then demonstrated the tired diver tow while on the surface. This skill complete we headed back to the boat, took our gear apart and then reassembled it again, and had a quick break in the cabin of the boat where a tasty carrot cake was served.
Since we were still completing our certification we didn’t get to go out on the third dive of the day, and instead we were able to go out snorkelling. We were both a bit ambivalent about the opportunity as we weren’t sure that we would see anything that we hadn’t already seen, but we ultimately decided that since we were here so we may as well go out. We got suited up in the stinger suits, then put on bright yellow shirts to increase our visibility from the boat. We jumped into the water shortly after 16:30, and began swimming away from the boat in the direction of our second dive. The water near the boat was too deep for us to really see anything, however as we got closer to the big, mushroom-shaped rock outcropping from the second dive we were able to see coral and fish pretty clearly. There were a few notable sightings during our snorkel - we saw a school of cuttlefish go by, we saw some very interesting orange fish that had a pair of Dr. Zoidburg-like feelers coming out around their mouths, and we saw some Dory fish swimming amongst the coral. We headed back when we saw the first group of divers climbing back aboard.
Dinner was served about thirty minutes after the conclusion of the snorkelling session. It was delicious - chicken in a red Thai curry over rice, with some roasted carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower as sides. After dinner we got to socialize with the others on the boat for a bit before there was a pre-dive briefing for the night dive. We hadn’t completed our open water certification yet so we were not participating in this evening’s night dive, however we were going to be joining the next day’s night dive so we listened to the briefing. The briefing showed some interesting things, such as how to signal air pressure remaining while using a flashlight and how to keep track of others underwater (hint: they give glowsticks to everyone to attach to their air tanks). We then relaxed a bit while the divers got geared up, and then watched the first part of the dive from the upper deck of the boat. We weren’t able to see any sharks, but we did see some large fish swimming close to the boat.
The wind was fairly strong so we only stayed out for about ten minutes; after coming back inside I did a bit of reading while Todd did a bit of browsing. We called it an early night and were in bed by about 21:15 - it had been a long day and there was another long day ahead of us!