Tonight I managed to do the night dives I’d flown all the way back to Cairns for. As with the three-dive day package I did a couple of weeks ago, I was with Deep Sea Divers Den on the Sea Quest vessel.

Before this, though, I was trying to sort out my Indian visa which is rapidly turning into the biggest pain in the backside. I was hoping to have my passport returned to me while I was still in Brisbane, but it never re-appeared. After two phone calls, I finally got a call back once I was in Cairns. At least I know they received my passport (there’s no trackable registered post in Oz, believe it or not) but I “hadn’t included a passport photo”. This is cobblers. I did. I paid a stupid amount of money to a Kodak shop to take them, the woman at the Post Office helped me cut one out of the collection and trim it to size and we packed the envelope together. What they mean is they lost it, but the woman on the phone insisted I’d forgotten. Nice start.

Next up, and the main problem, is that I didn’t include my flight itinerary though I had included a half-page letter explaining why not. Basically, I don’t know where I’m going to go in February when Hans leaves India. I may fly to North Africa with him, I may head back into SE Asia to see Jo, or I may head home. I can’t make that decision yet as it depends on so many factors. I have bought my flight in, but no exiting one as yet. I couldn’t explain this to the woman on the phone who was just telling me to send copies of my tickets – which I can’t even do for the flight in as they’re sat at Air India’s office in Kuala Lumpur awaiting my collection!

So I ended up drafting a second letter, sending them another photo and enclosing a copy of my savings account statement which hopefully should prove that I can definitely afford to buy a flight back out as and when I want to. I did ask them to call me immediately if this was a problem and I’d just buy any old flight out and fax them the details. As it stands I have to get my passport back by the 22nd as I fly out in the early hours of the 23rd. To this end, I had to spend another few quid on express delivery envelopes, although I’m not sure they “work” across large state boundaries (such as, for instance, New South Wales to the Northern Territory where my passport is now going to have to be sent).

Nightmare.

Anyway.

After sorting this mess out and posting the bumph off, I walked up to the wharf for the night dive. On the way, I bumped into a group of backpackers excitedly taking photos of some large insect and got talking to them. They were from all over the place, though the girl I talked to most was from somewhere in the US. She became the second proud recipient of a business card!

At the wharf I got all checked in and onto the boat, filled in the safety and fitness form and was provided with my equipment. I also bumped into Simon who I’d buddied with for my Advanced PADI – he’s now working as a hostie for the company so he can build up his number of dives for further qualifications – pretty much what I want to do only I can’t get the working visa to do it. I got talking to a small group of people from the UK – Iona from Scotland, and Lorna and her brother Dave from somewhere “darn sarf”. We needed even numbered groups for the dive, so I buddied with Iona who was the only one of the group to have done a night dive before – I think as part of her Advanced PADI course.

We had to have a guide as we were effectively night dive virgins, so that was another $15 per person per dive (grr) and the larger torches were $6 to hire as well. I do think they may a difference, though, so were worth the extra. The first dive was a bit of a nightmare, however. With us four and two other guys in the group, things got a little confused as it’s very easy to lose track of the group if you’re not careful. As had happened the previous night to our guide, he lost some people and gained others from other groups! Lorna also couldn’t sink properly and had to hang onto him to stay underwater.

The experience can be summed up very well with one word: eerie. We didn’t dive deep – 14m at the most and the vast majority of the time was nearer 5-6m. The visibility was superb – had this been daylight I think it would have been the best range of sight I’d have experienced yet. In the distance I could see little groups of greenish lights clustered together and moving around in mysterious ways – the other divers in their groups looking at the same bits of the reef together.

We managed around half an hour for the first dive then returned to the boat for food. Lorna was loaded down with more weight (as well as the dinner!) so sank much more readily on the second dive. Our group reduced to four as the two other guys went off on their own, it was a lot easier to keep track of my buddy. Our guide checked air levels frequently and as anyone neared 60 bar, they were sent to the surface. Fairly predictably, this was in order of dive experience. Dave first, then Lorna, then Iona. Finally (after 55 minutes, more than 20 minutes after Iona was sent surfaceward) I returned to the boat. Frankly, I’m really pleased with how long I stayed down as it says a lot about how my breathing’s coming along. With just the instructor to worry about, I was able to concentrate on my buoyancy as well so it was good practise.

We saw a few things I’ve not seen before including one or two patches of coral that were, indeed, spawning. Not the whole enormous underwater upside-down snowfall of a full reef spawn, but I have seen something and that’s great. I also saw a Lion Fish – don’t touch these! It’s a lot “quieter” under the sea at night – fish do sleep! I scratched my ankle on some coral. Four days later as I type this I have four very angry looking red dots where I did this, though there’s no swelling or discomfort.

On the way back I dished out the now customary cards and finally got to bed at around 2am after packing my bags.

Due to the time, tide and temperature my night dive is off as the reef’s not ready yet. Unlike with humans, there’s no way to “induce” it just to keep the tourists happy, though I’d not put it past some countries to try. I suppose a few thousand 2-bar electric heaters would raise the temperature that couple of necessary degrees. Thing is, Aussies are huge conservationists, so tinkering with Mother Nature’s not allowed. Unless you count the deliberate introduction of one or two new species into the country and the subsequent invention of Cane Toad Golf, Cane Toad Baseball, Cane Toad Cryogenics and so forth.

A shame then, but not the dive company’s fault. If there’s one thing you can’t rely on, it’s nature. Oh, and women. Nature and women. And politicians.

However, after writing all of the above I found that another company are doing night dives tomorrow evening, so I’m off out with them instead. No guarantee of coral doing rude things on a massive scale, but at least I’ll get to see the night fishes and the coral feeding (the vast majority only feed at night).

My apologies to “Waldo”, who I met on Couchsurfing and who I was meant to night-dive with. I only found out about the other company after I got back to the hostel and I had no way of contacting you! I hope you get some good dives in tomorrow regardless.

Wandering around town, I discovered two things. 1 – a sleeping bag for $25, saving me a whole $5 on the rental price I’d have paid for my two camping trips. And 2 – that just because the pavements are clean and it’s only a little sunny at 10am, walking into town barefoot is not a good idea. Especially as, by the time 11:30 comes around, the aforementioned footpaths are as hot as lava and cause blisters to appear on your feet. Just one to note, folks. Ow. Ow. Ow.

I also finally made it to Reef Teach, which was recommended by a ton of people. Quite rightly so, it turns out. The lecturer, Paddy, has been diving for thirty years and he’s hugely enthusiastic about his chosen profession and the wildlife he studies. And it shows. He’s a one man theatric machine, waving his arms, using his voice to comedic effect and raising laughs as well as concern during the 2 1/2 hour presentation. At $13 for adults including all the tea, coffee and Milo you can drink, plus a huge quantity of very nice chocolate biscuits it’s better value than the cinema, which was going to be my other option for the evening.

Finally, a quick “hello” to Anya, a German girl I got talking to in the Wool Shed after Reef Teach. She’d also been to the lecture and was the first recipient of one of my shiny new business cards that I had done up in Brisbane. Sorry, Anya – no prize. Just a glow of satisfaction of having card number one! And good luck with your Open Water course 🙂

The power is currently out in the hostel (and every other alternate half-block from here to the city centre, bizarrely) so I might not get this posted tonight… Yay for laptop batteries letting me type it up and “boo” to the building which houses the wireless I’ve been leaching not having a backup power supply! Tomorrow I have a little bit to do including trying to book a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Delhi. Annoyingly, Air India do not issue e-tickets to travellers flying out of Malaysia, so the website wants an address in the country to which to send my tickets! Not helpful…

Well, today was to be my last dive for a while as I’m flying on Thursday and don’t want my ears to explode. Not the best of starts when the bus forgot to pick me up, so the hostel had to ring them to remind them. Still, I made it to the boat in plenty of time. Today we were on Osprey V for the first time; usually we use SuperCat. Osprey’s a bit bigger, and has better cooking facilities which meant I was really looking forward to lunch! One unlucky passenger wouldn’t have had such an appetite… Rule 1 when puking on a boat: Do it outside, and preferably into a paper bag. Rule 2: Do it on the leeward side (i.e. not the side the wind’s blowing from) and as far toward the stern as possible. That way if you miss the bag, it all goes into the sea. And not back over yourself and wooshing 5 metres down the deck all over the small Irish girl reading a book who thinks she’s just been drenched by a freak wave.

I had another three dives today. Two would be assessed and one “fun”. Our first was a multi-level dive where we calculate our exact dive plan from depth to depth, using The Wheel. This is a device which helps you to calculate acceptable diving periods much more efficiently than the usual tables. The dive itself was a simple one, just dropping to 24m and waiting while the 1st day/Adventure course students did the little numbers test to appreciate the problems of nitrogen narcossis at depth. The more worrying thing was Nigel – the local trigger fish. He literally followed us from the surface right the way down and then swam right up to all of us in turn, then circled us quite threateningly.

Thankfully, it’s not the mating season otherwise we could have been getting some nasty nips. Trigger fish are very territorial and in 3 weeks or so he will bite anyone swimming where we were. They can bite right through a wetsuit. Scott, our instructor, and Simon, my buddy, both have fins with small chunks missing because of similar sudden attacks.

Our next dive was a fun one. I buddied with Simon and another chap who was finishing his Advanced course several months after doing the first half. We had a great journey around a reef lagoon until I realised I’d lost them. Oops. Fortunately, this is covered in the manual. Look around your immediate area for at most one minute, then surface at the usual rate. And there they were, having followed the same procedure. Easy as, then we dropped bak down again to complete the swim back to the boat.

Lunch was pretty good. Steak and sausages were available along with umpteen pasta and rice dished. I just had a huge sausage sandwich dripping in ketchup. Lovely. As was standard practice, we moved to another reef position just after lunch for our third dive.

As we started to tie the ship up (well, the crew did – not us) there was some hoo-hah. We’d got the rear ropes tied but not the front ones. Apparently the crewmember trying to snare them “lost it” when an Asian guy on the balcony above regurgitated his breakfast all over the back of the crewman’s head. Whoops.

Then onto dive three. My final one. Navigation. Armed with a compass, I had to buddy up with Simon and navigate a 30m square, returning to within 6m of my starting point. I only went and got nearer 6cm. Simon also passed on his turn, as did the other lad we were with. 100% pass rate and money well spent. And another piece of plastic in the mail to my folks’ that they’ll have to forward to me when it arrives! Me temporary card is only valid for 3 months.

I celebrated in style. Tomato soup for dinner. Yum.