My diving life

I may not be an instructor yet, but so close I can taste it.  I'm writing this blog, sitting in my own private corner on SeaQuest (our day boat), in preparation for another fun filled day on the great barrier reef.  Instead of following in the footsteps of all the other instructor trainees and Divemaster hopefuls, all seeking out work in a town over run with staff and not enough customers, I am now an underwater photographer.

Finally back in Australia, after a mad ordeal with Air Australia going bust 3 days before I fly, Cairns is not as warm as I remember.  Immediately I start work as a Divemaster on the live-a-board vessel OceanQuest, with duties such as dive guide, snorkel guide, mooring work and general deck duties.  My working week consisted of a 5 day 4 night stint on board, working 5:30-21:00 every day, most of my weekend was spent sleeping.  Although always visiting the same 10 dive sites, it is still some of the best diving I have ever done.  Some of the best experiences have been when night diving, taking divers under water in pitch black conditions with a torch for their first time, the smiles on their faces make my day.  Sharks, turtles, sting rays, moree eels, nemo, all these wonderful fish are there everyday to see, you can see them 1000 times and they are still amazing to see each time.

All the while, I had been living in Cairns Beach House Hostel, a cheap hostel and managed to get a private room for $15 a night, which was very useful when Freya arrived in Cairns.  Freya arrived 3 weeks after me, and being a dive instructor herself, immediately started looking for work.  Although it took a while, she started work on Fitzroy Island, which is one hour away on the boat.  A couple of weeks a go, we moved out of the hostel in to a shared house, which is a lot closer to Deep Sea Divers Den (my dive centre), and is a lot better than living in a hostel in every way.

2 months on, its coming to the time where I finish working as a Divemaster and start my instructor courses and exams.  My only problem is, that I dont have enough money for the exams and PADI fees of $1100, Scubapix (the photography company that work on SeaQuest) were looking for someone, so I started working for them.  This is great, work on the same boats, but I'm my own boss on here and do my own thing.  Another great thing is solo diving, as I carry a small back up scuba tank called a pony bottle, I dive on my own, awaiting other divers so I can get snaps of them with Nemo or Wally (a Mauri Wrasse).  Wally is a huge fish, who loves to be stroked and cuddled by divers, a brilliant photo prop :D  Also some turtles here love their back scratched and will literally bump their bums in to you to scratch them.  My plan now is to continue on with my photography, and when I have enough money saved, do my instructor exam, but probably continue on with Scubapix, I love this job.



I now formally promise to update my blog a lot more often than I have been, if only with more pictures and a small update.