So after several adventures later, cosplay, Halloween, Full Moon Parties, zombie walks, and finals (if you want to know about them you can just ask) I finally got the chance to get my advanced diver’s certification. So, I hoped on a boat to Maggie Island to get certified at the local dive shop. When I got there they told me my certification would involve 5 dives and reading of a few chapters from the dive handbook. Let me repeat that, 5 dives and a few chapters…what? It took me months to get my open water cert and now it’ll take 2 days? I love Australia! So after that I dawdled around, met some of the local wallabies (they are so cute, but the way they swarm you is very intimidating you see one and suddenly, they’re all around you. It was like the marsupial version of The Birds) and went to my accommodations. The accommodations were nice enough, but on a weird and kind of gross note I did find a cane toad in one of the toilets (Ew Mr. Toad, just ew).
The next day the sweetest cat greeted me as I embarked for my dive. This cute little grey tabby was rubbing up against my leg and purring! He escorted me to the front walk and plopped down in a sunbeam to see me off, so cute! So the first dive was for buoyancy control, which any diver can tell you, is a pain to initially work out. After that it was underwater navigation. Anyone who has ever been in the car or traveled with me, knows I am directionally challenged at the best of time. Needless to say, my first attempt was way off the mark. The other ones, surprisingly, went great I found the line easily. I can easily navigate a square, triangle, and using the terrain, I just can navigate back and forth in a straight line…go me. The last dive of the day was a wreck dive of the Moltke, a German cargo boat 150m off of Geoffrey Bay. So my dive instructor and I paddled out on our backs to the buoy and started our descent. The visibility was abysmal. I could see about 2m in front of my face. Plus I was having trouble staying down because the instructor insisted that I only needed 2 weights when I knew I needed 3; but I did see some awesome wild life! The first was this huge crayfish the size of my arm! We also saw a nudibranch (before anyone wisecracks or says nudi-what? It's a type of gastropod that kind of looks like a sea slug that comes in nearly every color you can think of) and I saw my first shark!!!!!!!! Before you ask, did it bite you, were you scared, no I wasn’t. It was a 3 foot epaulet shark, virtually harmless and probably more scared of us as it swam away as soon as we saw it.
The next day I had to wake up extra early to catch a bus to get on a boat, to do my last two dives on the Yongola Wreck. I spent 20 minutes waiting for the bus, being stared down by a bird whose name I forget, as I munched on an apple. The bird even hissed at me, like a raptor, weird bird. So one long and bumpy boat ride and gear up, we dove down 100ft to explore the S.S. Yongola, one of Australia’s most famous wrecks and one of the world’s best dive sites.
I was a little nervous about diving so deep, but going down was very easy. As soon as we began our descent down the guide line, dozens of silvery tarpon were swimming around us, and suddenly we hit bottom…right next to the largest stingray I’ve ever seen!! I was literally bigger than me, just chilling out in the sand. Why do you need to hide? You’re bigger than almost anything that could eat you! We spent our last two dives exploring the wreck. There was so much to see, you could see for 20+ meters and there were fish everywhere! We saw eels, wrasse, barracuda, and at least 3 different types of sea snakes! One in particular decided to get real friendly and moseyed over my way, my response “lets just be friends” and slowly scooted away. I also had a lot of fun trying to school with a small group of very big barracuda, they didn’t seem to mind. The best part of the trip was the second dive. We were swimming towards the bow when the instructor started pointing emphatically under the bow. Not thinking much of it, I took my time getting there, derping about, and finally looked under the ship… holy…cow…Under the boat was the largest fish I’ve ever seen, bar a shark. The fish was easily twice my size and looked so heavy it was anyone’s guess how it could swim. Apparently this grouper is called V.W., who visits the wreck from time to time. He’s called V.W. because he is the same size and a V.W. mini bus!!!! Not kidding! The pictures do not do justice to his size. It’s estimated that he weighs about 400 kg! After that experience and one bumpier ride later I officially joined the ranks of advanced diver! Yeah! However, there was no time to celebrate.
The next day a couple of friends and I hopped on to a bus and began the long ride up to Cairns and the Daintree rainforest!!!! The tour group we picked gave us the option of staying overnight, in the rainforest, so of course we took that option. We visited several sites like Port Douglas, swam in Mossman Gorge, and took a river tour to croc spot! We saw a few of them, it was very difficult as they were very well camouflaged. Creepy (shivers). After that we were dropped off at the hostel. After dumping our gear we spent the rest of the day relaxing on the beach and taking goofy pics.
We didn’t go swimming of course since stinger season was in full swing. (Will jellyfish always ruin swimming for me?). After that one of my friends, Line, and I decided to go on a (toured) night walk in the rainforest. Our guide, oddly enough, was German. We ended up not having a single Australian on the tour. While picking up others, our guide brought us over to see something in the bushes next to the hostel reception. It was a snake; not just any snake, but an eastern brown snake, the second most deadly snake in all of Australia. It was in front of the reception parking lot, yikes! Fortunately no one did anything stupid and the snake paid no attention to us. This was not the only time we saw snakes in less than ideal places. We saw two other snakes in the area around our hostel, none on the night walk, in the rainforest, but around the hostel…uhhhhh. There was also tons of large, very colorful, and probably venomous spiders everywhere too. Oddly enough, we didn’t see snakes or many spiders, but we did see forest dragons, toads, and some other lizards. We even got to see glowing fungus!!! It was mine and Line’s favorite part of the tour! (Bio geeks unite!) However, to see the moss everyone had to turn their flashlights off, ack! Fortunately nothing happened. The next day we spent walking along one of the beaches, which was absolutely beautiful. The sky and sea were so blue and the sand felt wonderful on my feet. The beach was covered in little crabs burrowing in the sand, resulting in piles of sand balls everywhere! We even saw some Ulysses butterflies; they’re the iridescent (shiny!) blue butterflies you usually see in rainforest advertisements. After that we had some time to kill so we visited the local bat conservation center. We got to feed one of the old bats and the caretaker even let us hold one of the baby bats! (I got to hold Stellaluna!!!!! I never thought I would say that). Unfortunately we had to head back to Cairns and the group split up to travel to different places.
Stellaluna is sleepy, time for a cuddle!
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