Nemo Found

Sorry for the lack of updates over the past week or so guys, but I have been fairly busy undertaking a course to learn how to scuba dive with Deep Sea Divers Den here in Cairns. So, as of the 29th January, I am now an officially certified PADI Open Water Diver which means that I can now scuba dive anywhere in the world, without instruction to a depth of up to 18 metres!

The course was a four day course with the first two days spent in a combination of the classroom and the pool. Classroom time was spent learning the theory of diving, and about safety, and all that crack (and for the first time in nearly three years I was given homework *gasp*). The pool time was spent practicing skills and learning about using the equipment properly.

After that, I travelled on a boat to the Great Barrier Reef where after four dives, passed the appropriate skills and training and was certified.

We saw the most incredible things on the reef.

There were white tipped sharks and sea turtles swimming just metres away from us.

There were sea cucumbers, one of which: the Elephant Trunk Fish, looks curiously enough like a loaf of bread. Upon seeing it for the first time, I would have been sure to remark that someone had obviously dropped their sandwich from the boat, however, being underwater and incapable of speech, this proved difficult. Another of which, the Pineapple Seacucumber, looks nothing at all like a pineapple!

There were massive fish like the Humphead Maori Wrasse that swam up so close to you that you could stroke them, small fish like the official Newcastle United coloured Humbug fish and of course the pièce de résistance: Nemo (otherwise known as the Anemone Clownfish).

All in all, superb fun, if a little daunting initially, but seeing all those things and much, much more in their natural habitat was incredible. A real highlight of my tour so far.