Diving Deep

So we arrived in townsville, and although we only spent the one night we both really liked the town. It's got lots of wide open spaces and the beachfront is really well set up for people to use and enjoy. The only other thing of note that happened was our first warning for free camping. We awoke in the morning to find that we had a sheet of council camping regulations stuck under our windscreen wipers (at least they didn't wake us at 5am, which seems to be the standard response).

After townsville, we spent two days travelling up to carins where we were due to have our trip snorkelling on the reef. This trip was nearly a non event as the company we had bought it from told us that we had to pay $150 extra for the trip. After a few hour long phone calls arguing we decided to meet them half way. So we were all set for our trip the next day.

We woke to a bit of a cloudy day, but hoped things might get brighter out on the water. Oh how we were wrong! We had a two hour ride out to the reef which was a bumpy ride to say the least. Adam was spewing all over the shop but lex managed to just about keep hers down. Generally I dont think my sea legs are too bad, but when even members of the crew are being sea sick your not filled with confidence. We had a briefing on the way out as we both decided to do an intro scuba dive to see what all the fuss was about. Although the reef was beautiful, we both thought the day was a bit of a rip off. We spent 2 hours getting out there, and then some time transferring people over to a dive ship. We got 45mins in the water and then had to get out for lunch which was a bit of a greasy mess. After lunch we had another 45mins at a different site before being told that we had to leave, only to face about a three hour journey back to land.

Adam was first up for the intro dive with our dive master Warren, who strangely looked like Keith Harris (the guy with Orville-check it out!) We were briefly shown our equipment and went through some key tasks we would have to perform in the water before diving deeper. Adam seemed to take it all in his stride and as he was the only one able to complete the tasks he was able to dive one-on-one with the dive master. As he was swimming deep around the stunning rainbow-coloured coral, Alexia was snorkelling around above. We saw amazing parrot fish, swam through tunnels of coral and Ad even touched the inside of a giant clam. After lunch, it was Lex's go at diving, which she was really nervous about, especially with her fear of deep water! After being loaded up with the heavy dive gear (which really makes you feel like a lead balloon) it took her a while to get the confidence to jump in. She gave it a good go and managed to dive a couple of metres breathing through the regulator but then the fear factor kicked in and she pulled back up.











The ride back was no smoother than before and this time even lex couldn't hold her stomach down! The boat was getting bashed back and forth all over the shop and in the words of one other passenger "I'm no mariner, but something here isn't right". As water started getting washed onto the deck, I dont think i was the only person thinking the boat might not make it back. But after another hellish time, we were both very glad to get our feet back on dry land.