I’ve wanted to learn to scuba dive my whole life. And with a vacation fast coming in Cairns Australia I thought I’d better learn fast.
I contacted a few local dive centres and they made it all sound so hard and frightening as well as being unaffordable. So a little disappointed I googled the internet for “Scuba Diving in Cairns ” . And what a helpful move that was. I was given nearly 100′s of options of Cairns dive shops and local booking agents only too eager to help me learn to scuba dive.
After sending out lots of emails with lots of questions I was relieved to find out that it wasn’t as frightening, difficult or very expensive as I’d antecedently discovered. Pretty much, in Cairns you can do a dive course in four, five or six days. Four days is the mimimum required to get your PADI certification. A PADI certification is the worlds largest and most recognised.The five and six day courses give you more dives and you get to do a liveaboard on the Cairns Great Barrier Reef.
After a some decision making I decided to do a 5 day overnight dive course. Fistly I had to get a dive checkup done. Now this shouldn’t worry anyone who is basically fit and healthy. If you have no serious illnesses or respiratory problems you should be OK. The largest issue is Asthma I beleive.
Days one and two are spent in the training pool and Classroom. This is when you learn the theory behind scuba diving and some basic skills. The hardest part about this was having to stay afloat stationary for 15 minutes. And rather unfairly the fattest people float easier than the muscled ones. Those beers after work everyday finally have assisted me.
On day three you leave for the great barrier reef. You are transferred to your boat at the reef by a fast boat full of daytrippers, but as soon as you get there they get you into the water. You start your training dives straightaway. The first four dives are part of your course, where you learn a few more skills. After that you get to do six more dives with no lessons included. You are now a certified scuba diver. And I got to do it on the Great Barrier Reef, not in some polluted turbid city water.