Robert's Travels

We woke up at 6:30, and were greeted by a gorgeous sunrise over the reef. The first dive was scheduled at 7:15, so after quickly getting dressed in our bathing suits we were out on the deck getting suited up. As we were getting ready the boat moved to a new dive site on the same reef. Once the boat was in position we did our standard buddy checks then jumped into the cool water. Our third training dive was pretty simple, skill wise - we demonstrated descending just with a visual reference, and once we reached the bottom we completely removed our masks and then practised putting them back on and clearing them. I had to be careful to keep my eyes closed when replacing the mask as I had my contacts in, however it went smoothly. We then showed we could orally inflate our BCD underwater to establish neutral buoyancy; once we had completed this task we got to explore the new dive site (called the Three Sisters). This site got its name from three underwater rock formations that look like sisters, and these formations each had tons of coral built up on and around them. We saw a small white-tipped reef shark shortly after we began our exploration - it was chilling on the sandy bottom of the ocean near one of the sisters. It was really cool to see! Once we passed the shark we continued on, where we saw a unicorn fish, and some really dense schools of fish swim around us. The sea life at this dive site was much more abundant as compared to our previous dive site, and it was really exciting to experience.

Once reaching 70 bar we ascended, had our safety stop then surfaced. There were no surface skills to demonstrate so got right back onto the boat. We were greeted by a hot breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon, with fresh cut fruit, yogourt and toast. It was a nice warm-up after being in the water so early after waking up. Our second dive didn’t start until 11:15, which gave us a couple hours to relax, socialize with others on the boat, and recap the dive. At 10:30 we started getting our gear assembled and performing our buddy checks, and right at 11:15 we jumped back in for our final training dive. This dive took place at the same dive site, and was focused on navigation using a compass, which was something we’d read about during the classroom portion of our course but something we hadn’t yet done. We started on the surface by navigating to a specified heading away from the boat, then did a free descent down to the bottom. We then swam around the third sister, where we got to see a large marble ray sleeping on the bottom of the ocean floor. We also saw several large fan-shaped pieces of coral growing sideways from a rock outcropping, and we got to swim through several large schools of fish that were feeding near the coral. One side of the third sister dropped pretty deep down into the ocean floor, but we did not go deeper than 16 m (the ocean floor was easily 25 m deep). This was intended to be an opportunity for us to practice our depth management, and neither Todd nor I exceeded our maximum intended depth. We finished the dive with some underwater navigation, then ascended to the surface and watched Elena demonstrate how to get an unconscious person onto the boat. It was a bit tricky as the waves were pretty large at this point, but we got through the demo and officially completed our open water checkout dives! We were officially PADI Open Water divers.

After drying off and coming inside, we sat down for a lunch of cooked chicken and potatoes, salads and coleslaw. The food was pretty good, and I went back for seconds. As lunch was finishing up the crew started getting the boat prepared to move, and once we were ready the captain took us to a new reef for the remainder of the dives. The second reef, Flynn reef, was a short distance from Milln reef so it didn’t take us long to get there. The third dive of the day wasn’t scheduled to start until 15:15, so while we waited I read and Todd took a nap. At approximately 14:45 the divemaster got everyone together and gave us our first official dive briefing. We were exploring the dive site named Gordon’s mooring, on Flynn reef. The scheduled route was a bit complex, and we were a bit nervous as we got into the water for our first dive without a guide, however once we reached the bottom and I saw the first landmark I started to get some confidence. We started by swimming through the gates just past the mooring blocks, where we encountered a large turtle that was gracefully swimming along, minding his own business. After a short pause to admire the turtle we continued on to a set of rock outcroppings that we kept to our right as we explored along the reef. We proceeded along the towering wall of coral until we reached what was dubbed the ‘fish bowl’, as it was a somewhat circular area flanked by coral where a number of fish were swimming and resting. We didn’t go much farther, instead we turned around and returned to the gates for our safety stop before ascending. The dive was a bit nerve wracking as I was worried that we would get lost, but once we reached the surface right by the boat it really boosted my confidence. It felt great to have completed our first unguided dive successfully!

After the dive there was cake in the galley, which made a nice post-dive, pre-dinner snack. We had dinner around 18:00, with the remainder of the afternoon being occupied by reading and relaxing. Dinner was lasagna, salad and garlic bread. The meal was really good, and I was super full when it was over. We didn’t have a lot of time to rest after dinner as our last dive of the day was scheduled for 19:15, and the dive briefing began at around 18:45. We were going to dive the same site that we had done on our previous dive (Gordon’s mooring), however since this was our first night dive we were going with a guide. It was a bit windy as we were getting geared up, so we were happy to get into the water. It was a bit spooky as we saw a number of large shark-like animals swimming around the boat, however it turns out they were just trevelli and not sharks. Once our guide was in the water we jumped in, descended, and began following him as he swam on. We were each equipped with a small flashlight in our right hand, as well as a lightly coloured glow beacon on our oxygen tank so that we could keep track of the person in front of us. Shortly after passing through the gates we saw our first turtle, named Brian, sleeping on the ocean floor underneath a coral outcropping. Our guide had let us know that Brian is estimated to be 89 years old, which helps give some context into how large this animal was. Shortly after encountering Brian we saw another large sea turtle that was on the surface breathing. As we watched it began to descend, and gracefully floated down into the coral and out of sight. As we continued along we saw a number of other fish, including a triggerfish that was sheltered in some hard coral. As we conducted our safety stop underneath the boat we turned off our flashlights with the hope that a shark would swim by, unfortunately we didn’t see any sharks.

The dive completed, we got back onto the boat, had a shower to rinse off, then quickly went to bed. We were exhausted from a busy day of diving!