Learning to scuba dive in Cairns Australia
| September 8, 2011 | Posted by wpa under Uncategorized |
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I’ve thought about trying to learn to scuba dive my whole life. And with a holiday fast approaching in Cairns Australia I thought I’d better get to it.
I visited some local dive shops and they made it all sound so confusing and awful as well as being not cheap. So a bit shattered I did a search on for “Scuba Diving in Cairns ” . And what a helpful move that was. I was given literally hundreds of options of Cairns dive shops and local travel agents only too eager to assist me learn to scuba dive.
After sending out a few emails with lots of questions I was relieved to find out that it wasn’t as frightening, difficult or unaffordable as I’d previously observed. Pretty much, in Cairns you can do a dive course in four, five or six days. Four days is the minimum to get your PADI certification. A PADI certification is the worlds largest and most recognized.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 bit of hard decision time I decided to invest in a 5 day liveaboard dive course. Fistly I had to get a dive medical checkup done. Now this shouldn’t worry anyone who is basically fit and healthy. If you have no major illnesses or respiratory problems you should be OK. The largest issue is bronchial asthma I beleive.
Days one and two are spent in the training pool and Classroom. This is when you learn the basics of scuba diving and some simple skills. The worst part about this was having to stay afloat stationary for 15 minutes. And rather unfairly the fattest people float better than the muscled ones. Those wines 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 smaller boat full of daypassengers, but immediately they get you into the water. You start your training dives immediately. The initial 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 training included. You are now a certified scuba diver. And I got to do it on the Great Barrier Reef, not in some polluted mirky city water.
