Sydney and Certified Divers!

The following morning was our last (thank goodness!) venture into Melbourne to switch over our vans and start making our way north! We arrived at our new rental van location first, so we could switch over all of our stuff and were hoping it was an automatic car so we could just follow each other to drop off our Wicked van. Unfortunately, it wasn't an automatic and it took about two hours to get the paperwork, payment, and the van itself all sorted. It would have been nice if they had been a bit more prepared, as we were hoping to make the drive to Sydney in one day. One the plus side, this was a proper camper van! It had two banquette seats with a table in the middle that would fold down into a bed. We had a proper little sink and kitchen utensils, a two-burner propane stove with a grill underneath, a microwave, and power outlets so that when we were plugged into a powered site we would have working outlets! It was great! It was also much more spacious than our last van--being a high top we could stand up in the kitchen area while we cooked. So after two hours of waiting we finally set off to return our other van--getting lost in the Melbourne suburbs along the way, of course, because the signage was terrible. After getting lost for 40 minutes we finally found our destination. It was a quick transaction luckily. We parked the van, turned in the keys, they said thanks and that our bond would be returned in  4-5 days, and off we went and dashed to catch the bus back into town!

We were finally, around 1:30, ready to hit the road! Of course we got stuck in tram traffic for another 30 minutes trying to get out of Melbourne, just so the city could make us loathe it that much more--and finally it was out onto open road! I have to tell you--we took the inland route which would be much quicker than winding around the coast--and there really isn't much. Grassland and road, with the occasional rest/service stop--that was about it. Even so, we knew we wouldn't make it into Sydney at a decent hour, so we had to find somewhere to stop along the way. Fortunately we had a "Camps Australia" map that was chock full of camper-van parks all across the country so we looked one up that was about 3 hours outside Sydney and right off of the highway in a small town called Yaas. We didn't arrive until about 9:30--but luckily we had booked ahead. Made some dinner on our nifty stove and it was an early night. The next morning when we woke--it was so cold! It hadn't been that cold the whole time we were in Victoria and now we were 8 hours north! There was frost on the ground and I was shivering as I got out of my sleeping bag. Luckily when we reached our caravan park in Sydney later that afternoon it was much warmer! We could even leave the windows open in the van to let things cool off/air out. 

Our first night in Sydney, to celebrate, the cooked up some real Aussie Bush Tucker-- Kangaroo-in our camper kitchen! It was quite yummy and John was sure to take a picture:

Now, our main purpose for being in Sydney was to finally get PADI certified! So that morning we headed over to the Dive School and collected our books that we would have to read through and complete some written activities before we began the course. Originally we were going to have to wait another 6 days until we could get our course done, but the guy was really nice and fit us in much sooner--for Thursday and Friday of that week! So, we had two days to spare which we mainly spent completing our PADI books and relaxing on our powered site after doing nothing but driving for the past week. We also met up with our friend Joel from Roundhill for dinner one night, since we were staying really close to his town of Coogee. The night before our course we took a train, and then a bus, to get to Coogee where we met up for some delicious Chinese food. It was good to catch up and we got to hear all about his Canadian ski patrol adventures, including his tale of surviving an avalanche! He ended up breaking one of his legs in half and had a metal rod put in, so when we met him he was limping along the street on one crutch. But it was great to catch up and great not to cook for one night, but then it was time to take the 2-hour public transport trip back to our holiday park and it was a bit more of a late night than we had planned--as we had to be up at 6 a.m. the next day for our 8 a.m. start!

We arrived at the center the next morning ready to go! Though I coffee would have been nice, I must admit. We had a small class for our confined water dive that day (in the pool). It was a late 20s/early 30s couple and another older English woman. We got our gear organized and headed off to the pool. Now, the two days we had been in Sydney had been beautiful and sunny--though they had said that a weather front was coming in. As we geared up that morning and hopped into the pool, the sky quickly became cloudy and it was quite drizzly by the afternoon--and stayed that way for the next two days during all of our dives--until the very end of our last dive when the sun finally came out and it was sunny for the rest of the weekend! What luck--after diving and being that cold for two days--tropical diving in Queensland would be heaven!

But yes, our first task of the day was to hop in the pool and swim 400 meters without stopping. No time limit, and we could use whatever strokes we wanted--they just had to make sure we were comfortable in the water. Sounded like a piece of cake--but goodness! Swimming 400 meters was MUCH more tiring than I thought! We all sort of struggled near the end but everyone made it. Next we got  short break then it was back in the pool to tread water for 10 minutes! The guy told us the trick to this was to relax and take even, deep breaths. Luckily during the whole duration of this task the instructor was reviewing diving hand signals with us to distract us from the fatigue--John struggled a bit but we both passed and now it was on to the fun stuff! We learned a lot of our diving knowledge through completing the PADI course book prior to starting, so now it was time to apply and practice our knowledge that morning in the water. We learned to assemble our SCUBA unit, put it on, enter the water, we practiced signals and out-of-air situations, recovering our regulators under water, breathing underwater without a mask, neutral buoyancy, disconnecting and reconnecting our BCD, weights, controlled emergency assent, partial mask clearing and complete mask clearing, and heaps of other stuff. The mask thing was the most difficult for me. As I wear contacts I can't open my eyes underwater without risking losing one. So one of the tasks was that he threw our masks across the pool, we had to swim to it, put it back on, clear it, then swim back to him--all underwater. As I could't see I had to have one of the instructors help guide me and it was a bit difficult but I managed--made me want to invest in Lasik eye surgery, though! Or a prescription snorkel mask--either one. But yes, we also did a lot of standing around and listening, which means a lot of shivering since we were wearing wetsuits in the cloudy afternoon and not expending much energy! But after about two hours in the morning in the pool, we were ready to try our first dive out in the ocean! 

It was rainy and windy when we got there, so after warming up a bit in the car, having to get out and put our wet wetsuits back on was terrible! It was SO cold! But we got everything on, got loaded up, and walked down this ramp to our entry area. We were diving in an area south of Sydney harbor, called Port Botany--Joel told us there were heaps of sharks in Port Botany so we were a bit nervous--but all the instructors had been diving there for ages, so it was alright. We got all suited up and headed into the water for a short, recreational-only 20-minute dive. It was alright at first, though the water was a bit murky--though relatively calm. We got to see a few cool things--we saw a huge grouper named "Bluey" that knows most of the instructors  as they were able to coax him out and fed him some sea urchin. He would swim right past us and let us touch him--it was really cool! We saw a few other fish as well, but after a while it was hard to enjoy anything because I was SO COLD. When the instructor was giving the "OK?" hand signal to  everyone, I responded with the "I"m cold" signal but also said I was OK. While it was a neat experience to have our first ocean dive, I was quite relieved when it was time to get out for the day! We loaded all our stuff back onto the truck and headed back to the school. Myself, John, and the other couple were to complete our classroom portion of the course at the school in about 2 hours time. Luckily the building had a hot shower upstairs, which I took advantage of so I could warm up and dry off into normal clothes! After that, on the recommendation of the instructors, the four of us staying for the course headed a few doors down to get some delicious Turkish Kebabs for dinner. Indeed, they were delicious and it was nice to have hot food!

That night, the course/exam was run by a really nice South African guy named Richard--I loved listening to his accent! Normally in the course you go over a few thing from the book and then take an exam, but Richard believed in completing the exam as a group, discussing every question to make sure everyone learned everything but also enjoyed learning--it also meant everyone passed. But it was still nice and he had a lot of diving experience and was telling us stories and giving us other tips and pointers. We were out of the course after about 2.5 hours--around 8:30 and after that it was time to head back to the  caravan park for the night! A quick snack, another shower, and we were out light a light! I swear I had not slept that soundly since leaving Melbourne--we were beat! But, it was up agin at 6 a.m. the next morning, to complete our ocean dive skills portion of the class. We had 4 extra people join us for that session, two Chinese guys--one of whom didn't really speak English, and another older couple. They were nice enough, but during the fun dive at the end of the day the woman kept swimming into me and bumping/pulling on my equipment--which I found very annoying. But yes, the next day it was time to don our not-quite-dry-yet wetsuits and head into the water! Luckily, that morning the instructors were kind enough to find me a hood and some booties to wear to keep me much warmer in the water that day--as most of your heat escapes from the top of your head and the bottom of your feet--it was so much better to wear them! Plus, he said all that in and out of the water, cooling off then warming up, doesn't help with regulating your core temperature which probably exacerbated the cold in the last dive the previous day. This morning, it was all one large dive divided up into skills. We did surface and underwater navigation with a compass, tired-diver tow, removing our BCDs and weight belts in water, weight checks, out-of-air situations again, regulator recovery, and once again my favorite--total mask clearing. Once again, I struggled a bit, as getting salt water up your nose makes you gag and it burns a bit, but I still completed the task, which is all that was required. We also did some other controlled emergency assent, and inflating our BCDs manually at the surface. It took about an hour and a half to complete all the skills--but after that--everyone had passed! Yay! As a reward, he took us to the other side of the little island (called Bare Island) where there was some nice reef we could explore in a fun dive to end the day. After suffering though the cold murky water throughout the course, this last dive was fantastic!

The water on the other side was crystal clear and the sun started to come out right at the beginning of the dive--bringing out all of the beautiful colors! We saw different sea plants and fish--we even saw a cuttlefish change colors! It was this experience that made me understand why people enjoy diving! It was nice once we finally got all of the skill requirements out of the way. It was a great and rewarding way to end the course. After that, we were PADI certified! Now it was Great Barrier Reef or bust!

But first, the following day, a nice jaunt back to the Blue Mountains!