Swimming With Sharks

[Bailey]

Large Fish / No Chips

Me (Left) Scuba diving at the Gt Barrier Reef,
No Sharks in view but an interesting experience all the same, Got down to about 40ft but, all did not end as expected !!

[Ashton]

Haha nice napoleon

[Bailey]

So thats his name ? - that was one hell of a tame fish. I don't want to detract from Nicks great Whale Shark pics (real diving) but I will if he dosen't mind re-tell my experience from the pic above.

While Staying in Cairns obviously a trip out to the Great Barrier Reef is a must. It hadn't occured to me to try Scuba diving, (never tried before) I was going for the Bar. Anyway when the announcement came up for a two hour introductory classroom lesson (free of charge with no obligation to dive) I was one of about eight that attended.

Now starts the Scary stuff - When it came to getting kitted-up - I noticed it was only me out of the eight that had signed the "Die as you Wish" disclaimer and everyone else had pulled out. Well that was the first inclination that I may have missed something during the brief.

The diving instructor seemed very confident - had explained once again all the hand signals and advised that we would take it a "step at a time" and if all was well we would descend approx 30-40 ft to the bottom of the reef.

Well the first thing I noticed was the difficulty there is in maintaining your balance in the water but, no problem there with the instructors arm to hold onto (did cross my mind how we would have coped if all eight had dived). Anyway the next unsure (bloody painful) sensation I was aware of was the feeling of "Pressure" My head felt like it wanted to implode - Still the overall experience was still fantastic.

Then my downfall - After about 20 minutes or so the instructor pointed towards the surface. the instuctor signalled for three different pressurisation stops

Now being in an alien environment I had kept my whits about me, that was until the last stop about 10ft below the surface. once again the instructor gave me the thumbs-up signal But, this time instead of replying with the same signal (What with the sunlight now penatrating to our depth and the pressure sensation now passed) I actually tried to answer him - Yep talk under water.

Well I shot-up that last ten feet like a cork - All I rember was my spluttering like a drowned rat - the people standing by the Jetty all shaking their heads with comments like " Well I'm glad I didn't Go" and the instructors words - "What the Fuck happened there"

The nice ending was that being I was the only one that dived that day - the camera man that went down with us gave me all the photos taken -about 50 in total

[Nick]

Hi Bailey

Amazing picture and a great story to boot. Thanks for posting - I was hoping ppl would talk about diving, if anyone else does it / has done it as I can see it becoming a rather expensive hobby for me from now on

I also ascended far too rapidly as was following the whale shark completely slipped my mind I had to watch my depth as was just so mesmerised trying to film & get a good shot - ended up 1m from the surface (from around 10m) and thought SH*T! Easy to get distracted when something awesome comes along.