Jess Down Under: Advanced Weekend and the Yongala Dive

So...I've been falling a bit behind on the whole blog posting thing again! Sorry guys! With the advanced weekend, final projects and papers being due and a final to study for, there hasn't been much time for anything else! But let's get to the diving:)

I went over to Maggie with Julia on May 22 to get my advanced certification. I got my OW certification with SDI, but the dive shop on the island is SSI. Doesn't really matter, but just letting you know:) We got there around 5:30pm so that we could do our night dive. Super fun, but kinda threw me off because it was my first dive in 3.5 months, it was my first night dive and my first beach entry dive. It ended up being pretty cool, but I still like being able to see everything around me! I was just waiting for a shark to sneak up behind me and say hey. I think I'll stick with clear, warm waters, thank you.

After the dive, we ran around the island trying to find some food, because we hadn't eat yet and it was around 9pm. Apparently, everything on the island was closed, but a bus driver told us to check the Chinese place. We ran to the end of the food places and it was closed too, so on our walk back, we stopped by the bar because someone needed an ATM. We asked about food, but they had shut down the kitchens already. Luckily, the owner was sitting there and sympathized with us. She made us two pizzas (which were delicious, btw!) and we sat and watch the footie game that was on. It was pretty cool!

The next morning we had to get up super early to get on the boat to the Yongala. Now, I've been waiting for this dive ALL SEMESTER, and there had been a lot of recent cancellations due to weather conditions. So, I was super excited when we got on the boat and headed out in near perfect conditions. SCORE! I was sooooo happy. Julia and I took seasickness pills just in case, but I was pretty good the whole 2 and a half our ride out. Then we did the dive briefs and all that good stuff. We did our deep dive first...30 meters, or about 100 feet, and the visability was about 15 meters. It was sooooo blue down there, dark blue...our dives on the reef were much shallower, and everything seemed really green then, but definitely not here. I didn't have much trouble equalizing my ears the first dive, and as soon as we got to the bottom we did our nitrogen narcosis test (my question was 7 x 8 + 3 = ?). Nitrogen narcosis occurs mainly when you go below 30 m and is when you get a kind of intoxicated effect going on. Don't worry mom, it's completely harmless and is reversibly just by ascending a few feet, as long as you know about it. After the test, we ascended a bit to give us some better bottom times.

We saw turtles, rays, sea snakes and all kinds of fish that were huge. Then there was the ship...I had been expecting to see this great big ship that actually looked like a ship, but we were really close and most of the time it just looked like a giant wall of coral...it was intense. Every now and then you'd catch a peak of something inside the ship, or come up upon the masts. It was awesome! The only sad part was that you couldn't penetrate the wreck or even let your bubbles touch it...without getting massive fines. The ship is uber protected and the Aussies are serious about these things.

After about 30 minutes we had to head back up to strap on new tanks. We did all of our super fun safety stops, and we didn't see the whale shark I was hoping for...oh well! We hung out on the boat, at some delicious lunch, and feed some fishes and watched a turtle warming up on the surface. Then it was time for dive number 2!

This time, my ears just did not want to equalize. I was very frustrated and it took me forever. When I finally equalized, it was a very loud pop, but it felt great...no more pressure. Also on the plus side, I was finally able to equalize like normal people (by holding my nose and blowing instead of my usual swallowing). After that, the dive went pretty well. The currents had picked up a lot, and swimming against them the length of the ship was really tiring. Then, we drifted with the current the whole length of the ship on our way back. Let me just say now that I'm not a huge fan of drift diving. I don't like being pushed along by the current, because I'm a bit of a control freak. When we first got into the current, Julia and I were near the back, then we zoomed up to the front! I just grabbed her arm and held on. I think I would like it more if I practiced with it a bit...but not 15 meters down on the Yongala...lol.

When we got back to Maggie after our Yongala adventure, we met up with Danielle, Brittany and Betsy, because they had come to finish up their OW certification dives. We watched a movie, then headed for bed so that we could get up and check out the next morning before doing our last day of dives. The last day consisted of navigation dives and bouyancy dives. The first time I did any navigation for my dives was when I did my OW course, and we only did it outside in 40 degree weather, right after we had gotten out of the pool. Needless to say, I was freezing and didn't do very well, so I thought I was a horrible navigator. However, when we did it in a more tropical setting, both in and out of the water, I did pretty darn well. My favorite part of the day, however, was the bouyancy dive. We did neutral bouyancy, got to swim through a hoop doing spirals and did flips under water. I got one video, but you should have seen us doing front and backflips in the water. Hilarious! I'll have to recreate it one day.

All in all, it was a pretty awesome weekend, and now I'm planning on doing a liveaboard in Cairns, then diving in both Hawaii and Fiji on the way home. Those three trips alone will give me 11 more dives, bringing my total up to 22. Then I'll only need 2 more (which will probably be in Jocassee or Keowee with Judson and Aaron when I get back to SC) to official be an Advanced Diver. Exciting!

That's it for this post...it's too long to add my Swat Vac trip here...so, off to make a new post! Love and miss y'all!

-Jess

PICTURES!