Maybe 6 feet, aint so far down

I went to the reef today. Woke up at 5.30 to get to the harbor (which is 7 km away) by 7.30. Checked in and then spent about an hour just waiting in the boat til it took off.

On the boat, they gave us basic diving instructions and then divided us into groups of 4 people. Since I was in the 7-th group, I had a bit of a wait ahead of me so I just went snorkling.

First attempt ended with me gasping for air and having my mask full of saltwater, which stung the eyes. Quick swim back to the boat to adjust the mask .. and a quick reflection on what I did wrong to realize I should keep my head a bit higher. Next attempt was considerably better. I got the hang of it pretty quickly. Of course, I still got the occasional mouthful of salt water.. and holding on to the mask with teeth had my jaw cramping up at one point. But it was fun nonetheless. The water was really clear - one could easily see 15 meters down with the mask on. I had to take my glasses off, so it was a bit blurry, but I still saw with quite enough clarity.

At some point, my group was called. They packed the gear around us and then helped us into the water. We then did basic exercises about what to do when we accidentally lose the breathing regulator and how to clean the mask from water. And then took off, 5 of us in the row, guide in the center and everyone just holding on to him. We had to equalize the pressure (blowing hard while holding your nose closed) every meter down.. but despite that, at 6 meters, my ears started hurting very bad, so we did not go any deeper. We were down for about 11 minutes, but it seemed like much less.

The reef is really amazing. Especially the second place they took us to. I saw at least 20 different species of fish.. and I saw some of them actually feeding on the coral, which was fun to watch. No sharks or turtles, though. But the corals alone are already quite a sight to see (google "coral reef" for images and look at any one of them to get an idea).

I also tried diving with the snorkle. Took a while to figure out how to actually get below the waterline. At 2 m down, my ears started hurting and I decided not to try to go further. S. just mentioned on Skype that I should have equalized the pressure even while snorkling. Common sense, when I think about it, but did not occur to me back there.

On the way back, I sat on the bow (front) of the ship and just enjoyed the letf-right-up-down swinging motion. On quite a few occasions I got completely drenched from the spray that occurred when the boat crashed into the wave, as there was pretty strong wind.

Once back on the land, I decided to finally pay a visit to that ex-classmate of mine who was supposedly in Cairns. I was afraid it would be fairly ackward, as we had not had a conversation for at least 8 years.

It was not. Quite the opposite, it was actually quite interesting. He told me how the place he was working in was badly run and about his aspirations being related to wine economics. We could talk for about 30 minutes before he actually had to start working. I then walked back to Franks place again.

All in all, a very fun day. But one day was enough for me. Snorkling and diving were both fun to try once but are not quite for me, I think. Nevertheless, I definitely do understand what others find in it.