July 17 Friday. Today was a provincial holiday, so when I went to the Swiss bakery they were closed. But the farmers market was open and I got some bananas and a papaya. Then I made a loop to several of the travel shops checking the postings for cars for sale/ride shares/etc. Friday also means all you can eat BBQ at Asylum and they do a good job taking care of us vegetarians too. I was at a table with five Dutch people, an English guy, a German guy, and a girl from the Netherlands. Canadian Adam was also at the table briefly, but moved over to another table where two British girls he likes were eating.

July 18 Sabbath I got up, showered, had breakfast (including my papaya purchase from yesterday, yum), then walked the two miles to church. There is a guest speaker this week, Charissa Fong, a 21 year old from Sydney that has been preaching since she was 16. Actually she was preaching long before that, playing church at home with her younger sister. The practice/playing has certainly paid off, because she is a polished speaker now. It was impressive to hear her presentation on blind Bartemaeus and his meeting with Jesus. She is presenting a series each night this week, but I will only get to hear a couple of them because I will be diving for several days. There was another very nice potluck after church and I met a number of different people than from last week. I walked home around 2:30 and had a brief nap. In the evening a group of us went to have dinner at The Heritage and then also at Woolshed. That was enough to fill me. I returned to Asylum and finished packing for my diving trip, since I am leaving my large backpack at the hostel and only taking the smaller carry-on.

July 19 Sunday An early breakfast of cornflakes and a couple bananas, then a wait for the shuttle to collect me. They arrived 20 minutes late, but I was the next to last pickup so it was not too bad. We were quickly taken to the Cairns Dive Center and filled out paperwork while getting a briefing on how things would go for the rest of the morning. After our paperwork was done 9 of us doing live aboard options were shuttled down to the piers where we joined the daytrippers on the Sunkist taxi boat. A rather choppy two hours later we met up with the Kangaroo Explorer on the reef. We moved aboard the KE, got settled in our rooms (I am sharing a berth with two Germans) and had lunch. Immediately after lunch we got suited up and into the water. There are only two others taking the Advanced Diver course, an English girl named Christey and a German girl named Katrin. We were joined on the first dive by Goro from Japan, who is already an advanced diver, and our dive master was Leticia from France. The sky was mostly clear and that first dive was beautiful because of it. Light filtering down makes everything more vivid, the colors, textures, patterns, everything. The best thing I saw was a large brown cuttlefish hovering on the backside of a rock outcropping. Everyone else went right by it, but I got a good look at her (it turns out she is known in the area somewhat). She was about two feet long and I got to about 12 feet from her before I turned and left her alone. She remained in place the whole time. On this first dive Leticia pointed out things we could touch and things we should avoid, which was helpful. We handled a couple anemone and a sea cucumber and touched a few types of corals to get the sensations.

The second dive was at a site called the Fish Bowl. The four of us that dove together before went out on our own this time. A nice reef site, but I did not see anything spectacular. I know, I'm getting spoiled if it has to be spectacular to make it worth mentioning. There were many fish and they are beautiful, but after a few times they do start to become 'commonplace'. After a long surface interval that included dinner we got in the water one more time for a night dive. I'm glad I am getting the chance to do the night dives here, where it is nice and warm. I was not overly impressed with night diving. We did see crayfish and many other fish. We were told that if you spot small fish and light them up with your 'torch' you can often get larger fish to strike, but we did not see that. One lesson, red eyes are turtles and most fish. Green eyes mean SHARK. After our night dive which was led by Peter the dive instructor, we had a session to go over our dive for first thing in the morning: our deep dive. Both of the other girls have already done deeper dives than we are qualified for. I am somewhat apprehensive about a deep dive because it does take me longer to get the pressure equalized in my ears and I do not know how the deep dive with work with that. I think we all got a good night sleep.

July 20 Monday. I had set my alarm for 5:30am, since the schedule shows us doing a 6:30 dive. By 6 most people were in the lounge and we had a briefing on our location, a different portion of Briggs Reef.. We could watch the sun rising and it was just poking itself out of the ocean's horizon when we got in the water. The low level of light does make things less colorful, but no less busy in the water. The depth was really not a problem for me. All the issues are in the first 10 meters and then it seems to be much easier. It also worked much better to descend head first instead of sinking vertically. Immediately, we encountered a Napolean Wrasse, about 7 feet long and massive in its other dimensions as well. We also quickly came across a couple sharks resting on the sandy bed of the reef. They moved off and we did a few experiments to see the affects of the additional gravitational pressure. First, Peter had brought a raw egg which we peeled and it retained its shape (until a hungry opportunistic fish darted in and snatched it). We also had brought down a ripe tomato to see the color change as the pressure bruised the fruit. We ate the tomato at 30 meters; a little tricky but kind of fun. That out of the way we made a long slow ascent following the reef up to shallower water.

Our next dive was one in which we had to practice navigation skills with a compass. I get the principles, but still need more practice to feel comfortable doing this. I get easily distracted by pretty fish and plants and get off course. We had a long break between this dive and the next and in that time I took a nap, read some, and picked up an underwater camera for three future dives. Part of the break was taken up by moving to Milln Reef to a site called Club 10. On this dive I got 100 pictures and the light was decent, so I hope I have some good ones. It is quickly apparent that underwater photography is a challenge, because the subjects are often moving and the current means the camera operator is too. And you are not supposed to steady yourself by holding onto anything. That just makes the good shots that much more rewarding.

We did another night dive, but it was short and disappointing. The three of us in the course joined up with Marlin an older french woman who is an experienced diver, but that seemed to work against us. She descended immediately to the bottom, which is not where we had planned on going. The three of us made sure she saw the direction we were headed and she did follow us for a while below us, then disappeared. In a situation like this we have to spend a minute looking around then if you do not find the missing person, you have to come to the surface and let the boat know someone is missing if you do not see them at the surface. So we returned to the boat and they said she had come back and already gone out again with another diver. We just stayed at the boat. I do not think this helped my mediocre feeling about night diving.

I do need to mention that the food is really good on board and there is PLENTY to eat.

July 21 Tue. Woke up at 5:30am with Johannes to get ready for the morning dive. I ate a banana and an orange while we waited for the others to be roused. Again we watched the sun come up as the boat was moved to another site on Milln Reef. This one is called 3 Sisters for the three towering bommies that make up its principle features. I had the camera for the first two dives of the morning, so it was good that the sun was just coming up when we got ready to hit the water. It was Christey, Katrin, Marlin and I who buddied up again. We went to the 3rd Sister, the furthest one out and stayed there for the majority of our dive, starting at the bottom about 28 meters down and spiraling upward around it. It was still dark enough that most of my pictures are not sharp, but Katrin and I did get pictures of a turtle in the open water. After about half an hour we returned to the boat and breakfast.

Our second dive took us to the 1st and 2nd Sisters and light was better this time. Amazing corals, plants, and fish all around. I got decent pictures of a small skate/ray, a lion fish, a couple good ones of pair of nemos, and more. After turning in my camera, relaxing a bit and having some lunch we had our third dive. The light was fantastic again at this time and I really needed to have a camera on this dive because of that. Oh well. I slept half of the way back on the taxi boat, satisfied with my trip.

Back at Asylum I am now in room 17 (upstairs) and only have two room mates. This is a nicer room. My roommates are an Italian and a German named Beno. Beno has been traveling for almost nine months in Australia and is here with a Dutch guy and a French guy that he met along the way and partnered up with. They have each traveled nearly 25,000 km (although not all together) around the nation. Another guy at the hostel has been a storyboard editor for the Family Guy and wrote an episode that has not yet aired. He is a funny New Yorker and in love with my beard.

July 22 Wednesday I had a chance to talk with Scott and Josh/Lisa today on Skype. That was good. I sent them some of my underwater pictures. I went by the Swiss bakery again: two almond croissants and a chocolate one left with me.

July 23 Thursday Spent more time today tracking down a ride. I have not heard back from too many people, but that may not matter. This evening I met with Christina, a German girl with a 4WD. She is planning on heading south next week. She had been planning on leaving on Monday, but she has gotten a cold and had to put a dive course she was in on hold. If she feels better soon, she will continue the course, if not, she will abandon the course and head south anyway. She already has one passenger, Julie from Canada and is trying to get one more before we leave. So I think I am set for making the journey down at least as far as Sydney with them. Julie needs to be in Sydney by August 11, which is a little faster than I would like to make the trip, but I am in no position to complain. This should save me a couple hundred dollars over the next cheapest option.

July 24 Friday After a lazy morning, I went to the farmers market and got another papaya (pawpaw), a sack of apples, and a bunch of bananas. The damage: A$7.10 or $5.68. The papaya itself would have run A$6 at the supermarket. The Friday BBQ at Asylum was fun again with a lot of new faces since last week. Earlier in the day I got my plane ticket from Alice Springs to Sydney (via Adelaide). This was the cheapest option. I could have taken a train to Adelaide and then plane/or bus from there, but any possible combination would have been at least a $150 more. Even doing a car relocation with a rental agency would have cost more and put me under a real pressure deadline to drive from Alice Springs to Sydney in a little over four days; possible but risky. The train does sound interesting, but I will get to see more by driving up and then getting back to Sydney as fast as possible. I'm satisfied with how it is turning out. I also booked my hostel in Alice Springs for the one night I'll need it between finishing my volunteering project and my flight.