great barrier reef v1.1

we did 2 dives the first day at a site known as "petaj" on the milln reef. from our location on the outer region of the gbr you could see the whitecaps crashing on the very edge of the reefs. it is at the whitecaps that the reef ends and the ocean floor drops out. the light blue goes to black. and here the big boys, the tiger, hammerhead and bull sharks can be found. there is no reason they can't cross to our side. it is only rare.

after every dive there is prep for the next dive. equipment, drinking 1 litre of water, updating your dive log and monitoring the level of residual nitrogen still in your body. you become a junkie for the next dive fix. you can't wait for the rush of the bubbles as you break the surface and your first sweet breath under the waves.

4 dives in our second day. the first at a site called the "whale" at milln reef. the second dive at "tracey" on flynn reef. our group was blessed with unheard of calm conditions, and the water was a constant 26 degrees with 20 meters of visibility. by the end of these dives we had pushed our depth limits with oscar, and had passed through all of the dive flexible skill tests. if you think you love your girlfriend/boyfriend, wife/husband, mistress or anyone else wait till you have to share air with them at 15m. i felt so close to lyds as we drilled that i was out of air. it was here that we were booted out of oscar's nest. we were certified now. certs. it was time for lyds and i to dive alone in the greatest scene of biodiversity on earth.

note on my dive partner: lyds was a champ the entire trip as she suffered from a cold and was congested. the cold messed with her ability to equalize when acending or decending. they had already advised our class that you should not dive with a cold but what could we do? wait? once in a lifetime experiences require once in a lifetime efforts. we were not out here to fu*k spiders. lyds knew this better than anyone. so she soldiered up.

our first dive alone was a great feeling of freedom. we were set up to dive a site called "gordon's mooring" on the flynn reef, and it called for some tricky navigating to find the bommie shaped like mickey mouse's head. unwisely, lyds put me in charge of our underwater navigation. this should have been a problem for a guy who gets lost when he is not 18m underwater. i mean, i have the sense of direction of marcus brody. but i hit our dive site right on, and along the way we ran into a massive sea turtle, a few giant clams (over 1m) that would close as we swam near, and a reef shark. as soon as we reached mickey's head i became lost again as i swam right through the middle of his head. lyds then took the lead and successfully navigated us around the site. when it was time to go back i again took the lead, somehow remembering the return courses, and lead us right back to the ship via another route. for 47 minutes we were together underwater. teamwork personified.

that night we did a night dive. the energy in the dive briefing was electric. people were super excited, or super nervous, or both. there was a lot of silent faces or jokesters. i was so excited that i was knocking my knees together under the table with a stupid grin plastered on my face. it was time to see some real sharks! oscar gave us the briefing and joked around with us now that we were certs. he gave us 5 minutes to play with the glow sticks we had been issued before he began. everyone got their rave on, and lydia and i had a mock lightsabre battle. he warned us about keeping our team interval in the water, as everyone seems to get so nervous that they just bunch up on his back. we also went over the procedure for the "ring of steel" - the formation at the bottom of the ocean we would form if we saw a tiger or bull shark. oscar said once we were in position we should all count to 5. by that time he would be back on the boat! good thing we had torches too as sharks are attracted to light. we went over new sign language that only required one hand, as you needed you other hand to illuminate your chest with your torch to sign. the sign for half-tank was changed to us giving oscar the finger. he told me i could only give him the signal for half-tank once! then we suited up and dove into the black water. on most dives sharks are already circling the boat - attracked to the light or oscar throwing a snorkel way out in the water attached to a rope and dragging it along the surface. for our dive there were none. with our torches we all decended and met on the bottom. the water looked so dark, so lifeless and cold. oscar tried calling sharks with his coke bottle but i think his size scared them off. lyds got to see one, however, i was devastated not to see one or have to assume the ring of steel. at another point in the dive we decended to the bottom and turned our torches into our chests to block out their light and sit in darkness. then we waved our hands in the water to ingite the phosphorescent algae like sparks. red eyes shone out of every bommie. green eyes in the distance teased of sharks being close. we visited brian's home - a famous sea turtle the size of a kitchen table, but, unfortunately, he was not home.

a successfull failure perhaps? like apollo 13 we made it back home but the lack of sharks and missing brian got me down.