Hello Internet!
The fish are a little different from the UK!
This weekend was very exciting as I have had my first big diving adventure! A group of us from the uni dive club went to Stradbroke Island for the weekend. Half the group were there to do their Advanced Diver qualification, the other half of us were just there for fun.
It was a really great trip, I heard whales, saw dolphins from the boat, saw tonnes of colourful reef fish, saw wobbegong sharks, stingrays, cuttlefish, starfish, christmas tree worms, corals, sponges… the list goes on and on.
It is one of the best dives I have ever been on, but I have a feeing that that bar is going to be re-set with almost every dive I do out here, it just gets better and better!
Puffer fish!
Apparently a turtle did pop to the surface to say hi whilst we were diving down in the big blue, which is a bit of a shame, but I have a whole year to be able to dive with a turtle, I will manage this!!
Nevertheless it was an amazing weekend and I have loved diving just because I want to. I’ve always loved diving, but its even more fun doing it just as an adventure! I’m definitely looking forwards to getting more fun dives in! (More detail about the actual dives can be found here!)
Having a whole weekend dedicated to just relaxing and diving was fantastic. I managed to get another four dives for the log, pushing my total bottom time up by a whole three hours! I’m now up to 28 dives, only 22 more to get and then I’m all set to try and do my dive master!
Steph and I in our room on Straddie
It was a really lovely weekend, we stayed in two houses on the island and I got to meet a load of people I had never met before, including a few more Brits! One of the girls on the trip actually lives close-ish to me back home, so we’re going to try and go on a few dives when we are back in the sunny old UK! In the evenings we had communal meals and exchanged diving stories, which was really lovely.
We also went for a bit of a wander around the area where we saw tonnes of fruit bats taking flight as the sun set and wild kangaroos/wallabies (I’m not actually sure how to tell the difference from a distance)! That was pretty awesome! Apparently there had also been a wild koala, but it was gone by the time we got there!
Kangaroos/Wallabies just casually in the street!
Once I’d returned from Straddie Island it was back to business with my assignments and lectures. We did try to do some whilst away for the weekend but we just ended up chatting and having a laugh, which is always needed!! Walking around campus is entertaining at the moment as it is ‘swoooping season’. This means that protective parent birds dive bomb you if you get too close to their nest. Apparently they like you even less if you are on a bike, but I have been swooped a few times on the way to uni! It’s quite funny but a little scary!