Learning to Dive on the Great Barrier Reef

Hello again!   I'm back from my trip to Cairns, where I took an Open Water Dive Course and went on a 3 day/2 night live aboard on the Great Barrier Reef with Pro Dive Cairns.  My instructor, Lauren, couldn't have been nicer.  It took some longer than others to get acclimated to scuba diving, but she made sure everyone felt comfortable in the water, doing such skills as removing our masks then putting them back on at depths of 9 meters(this was everyone least favourite skill!).  After two days in the pool and classroom, we  finally went out to the Great Barrier Reef on Scuba Pro II for three days of diving one of the best dive locations in the world.

Our Open Water certification class was not the only group on the boat.  There were some people going for their Advanced certification, some learning to be Rescue Divers, and others who were Open Water Certified and just wanted to dive the reefs.  Once at the reef, we dove right in to 24 degree water and saw many things, such as parrotfish, groupers, flowery cod, and the occasional ray.  After two dives the first day, we were all tired and welcomed an 8 o'clock bedtime.  The second day began at 6:30, but coffee was not needed as our first dive of the day was at 7.  Nothing like a nice dive at sunrise to wake you up.  The picture above is a spot we dived at the second day.  The reef in the top of the picture is called Mickey Mouse, where I saw a huge sea turtle.  Our final Open Water dive was the best to this point, as we saw a reef shark, a cod, and a sea star.

After I completed the four ocean dives to fulfill my Open Water Certification, we had five more pleasure dives over two days.  It was fun being able to dive wherever I wanted with my buddy and not have to worry about seven other people.  On these dives, I saw clownfish (Nemo), sea turtles, a moray eel, many sea cucumbers, a school of sleeping parrotfish, and a school of barracudas, to name a few.  But, the highlight of the trip was our night dive on the second day.  Right as we began our descent we saw two grey nurse sharks swim under us.  The girls in our group almost jumped back on the boat!  It was very cool seeing everything asleep, especially the red eyes of shrimp looking back at you.  Although it was sad to leave the reef on the third day, everyone was tired and welcomed a bed that didn't rock at night.  It took us a few days to get acclimated to land again as our bodies thought we were still on a boat.  All in all a great trip, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn to scuba dive, further their scuba training, or just go on a livaboard trip to the Great Barrier Reef.