Whitsunday Islands part 2

Figured it didn't make any sense to keep naming the posts after the dates when that's not what they're about...
Anyway, unfortunately no pictures today, as I promised. For some reason I can't upload pictures, so I'll be adding the pictures tomorrow, sorry guys.

So, last update was Friday and Saturday, naturally this update will be... Sunday! (/cheer)
Anyway, our first morning at the hotel. We didn't know exactly when breakfast is on, so we got up at 6.00, to get to breakfast at 6.30 (we found out the next day, that we didn't have to get up that early... breakfast ended at 9.00 or something).
Anyway, after breakfast we had a little while to get ready for todays trip: Knuckle Reef Lagoon!

All right... so there are a FEW pictures, but none I took. All from Cruise Whitsundays own website

No, I wasn't in the helicopter (they didn't actually have  any out there that day), and no... the food didn't actually look that good... oh well, that was to be expected. Anyway, the place looked absolutely awesome, in the brochures AND in real life.

Back on track. We left from the hotel around 8 or so, I think. Been so long I can't remember anything anymore... horrible. At the habour, we waited for 15 minutes or so, till we could all board the boat, Cruise Whitsundays (great name, eh...?) The boat was pretty big, but there were a lot of people on it. The people on the boat (or ferry... maybe?) were the only people that were gonna be on the pontoon.

As soon as we started sailing, some guy gave us a short briefing. It was pretty funny. I forgot why, but he made a lot of jokes about Irish people. He was Irish himself, I think. It was fun anyway. He told us, that after the briefing, the dive-masters would come around and talk to the people who wanted to do scuba diving at the reef. The prices, $100 for a certified dive, $50 for second dive, and $110 for an introduction dive, which required no previous scuba diving experience. All ten of us, who had a certificate, wanted to dive of course. So, we filled out the forms, paid the $100, and went upstairs to get briefed.

The dive-masters were all pretty cool, probably around... 25 years or so. At least that's what they looked like. There were other people who wanted to dive as well, but we were split into groups of three, so only one group got with a non-Dane. I was with Mathis and Patrick. We had heard from our scuba diver instructor, that the visibility could be up to 40m+. Unfortunately, the day before, it had been very windy, so the visibility was only around 15m. Pretty disappointing really... the dive was great anyway!

We were told, that we had to be the first in the water, but everybody else was told the same:P We were pretty fast in the water though. Onto the pontoon as fast as possible, get a wetsuit on, get to the gear, and they pretty much put the gear on you, damn it was fast. Then down a staircase under the pontoon, get with your group, and time to swim off. The water was great, except for the relatively low visibility. There were a lot of corals everywhere. They weren't as colourful as what you see on TV, but we didn't bring any light down there, and the water was, as mentioned before, a little murky. We went down to about 15m, I think and we stayed down for around 45minutes. I had enough air for another 15minutes, but we had to get up anyway. Apparently Birk, another guy from the class, had run completely out of air... and blamed it on him having to keep and eye on the rest of his group all the time...

Anyway, I have a lot of pictures from the dive, that I got from Patrick, who brought a camera. They're pretty okay, I guess, but due to the particles floating in the water, he couldn't use the flash without getting even murkier pictures. Oh well. The rest of the time on the pontoon was spent relaxing, snorkeling, riding the water-slide, going on trips in the semi-sub  and the glass bottom boats.

I would loved to have gone snorkeling, but after the dive, I had some problems with my ears. They were kinda hurting, like when you can't equalize properly. I'm guessing it was because of my little accident (or walkabout, as most classmates might call it:P). We were floating above some corals, looking at him picking stuff up, and handing it to us. I had established neutral buoyancy (I floated, did not have to keep swimming to get up or down), but suddenly, without touching the BCD or my weights, I began rising to the surface. Pretty quickly even (which can be pretty dangerous). I tried emptying the BCD, but it didn't slow me down enough, so my head broke the surface of the water. Having emptied the BCD, I got down again pretty quickly as well (though I filled it up a bit on the day down, to avoid going too fast), which can also be dangerous! I think that's what might've caused my ears to hurt... I spend most of the remainder of the day on the top of the boat, just talking with people. Was pretty damn warm that day, so I tried to find a place in the shade, though that was pretty hard...

We were back at the harbour at around 5-5.30, I believe, so back at the hotel, we had a little time in the pool/spa, and then time for dinner again. I got pasta again... people cheated... and sorbet for desert again! Oh well...

So, with no scuba diving the day after, I could drink without the risk of dying the day after... just beer, though it was kinda expensive. Oh well, it was good. VB is now my 2nd favourite beer!

Until next time (tomorrow...) see ya /wave!