The
first day, the smaller boast takes us to one of the reefs in the Great Barrier
and there we do one dive. After a great lunch, the people staying on the Ocean
Quest (larger boat) transferred and were allocated into the rooms. The rooms
were quite spacious; each dorm room had two bunk beds, which were extremely
close to the ceiling. Getting down from the top bed and not hitting against the
ceiling was a morning and night pee task.
With
the luggage in place and beds allocated a new briefing and a new dive; however
this one was already part of the course. After the dive we had some time to
rest and have dinner. The meal wasn’t as great as on land, but good enough when
you are suffering from diving munchies. About one hour after dinner our last
dive for the day, but now it was night, one light in the stern illuminating the
water from the top and one line going into the water from the bow were bringing
a mass of fish life. The light brought many small fish, which would attract
larger fish, ending utmost in sharks. If it wasn’t enough, one of the
instructors was throwing chunks of meat in the water. The sharks would wrestle
for the feeding almost biting each other.
We
had our briefing and suited for the dive. Going into the water at night for the
first time is like skydiving, blood rushes into the veins as you jump into the
water looking at the sharks circulating the light above.
Once
in the water the darkness towards where the torch doesn’t point disguises the
life underneath. Visibility is as far as the light goes, wither from the torch
or from the boat light. The life underwater is much like above, many animals go
to sleep; turtles, rays, and some other fish are under rocks and mostly without
moving. If you light them, they will wake up and most likely be eaten by one of
the night predators, such as sharks and barracudas. Another interesting fact is
that most fish cannot see to far at night, when we point the light at a small
fish, a larger one will rush into that fish hunting for its meal.
The
dive was done, but it was great for a first day. A desert followed the dive,
since dinner was not enough for the big eaters.
Sleeping
in a boat after diving the whole day is much like a baby sleeping in a cradle. It
cannot get better then this.
The
first dive was at 6:30 in the morning, whoever was doing that dive had to be on
the deck at 6 am for the briefing. Waking up at 5:50 wasn’t a problem since I
was already sleeping around 9:30. Another dive for the course, but now it was a
deep dive. Because we were at 25 meters under sea level, some facts differ from
shallow dives. The instructor took a tomato, a water bottle and an egg with
him; the water bottle was almost flat because of the water pressure, the tomato
was brown instead of red (red is the first color to dissipate), and the egg
yolk was used for our own entertainment, again because of the water pressure,
the yolk does not break apart and we could play with, passing it to each other.
To
be continued...