Here's a bit of trivia for you... What James Bond movie featured this location?

Paddling away in one of the lagoons.

Finally done with the IE!

Surviving the Phuket IE

What a crazy weekend! I flew to Phuket (Thailand) Friday morning and came back Monday night. The IE (Instructor Examination--scuba diving) started on Friday, with all the written exams. Saturday were all the pool sessions (teaching Open Water and a skill circuit to see if we're up to the PADI standard) and Sunday ended with a rescue scenario and 2 skills to teach in the sea.

Walking in, I saw people from different dive centers sitting together, wearing their team t-shirts and chatting with each other and their course directors. Mostly teams of 5 to 10. Then, there was me... All by my lonesome. The only one without a cute little t-shirt. No course director to tell me what to do. And the only one from out of town that doesn't know what the **** is going on :-(

We were given an overview of the weekend and our different tasks (people had different skills to perform for the examiner). For Saturday, I had to teach "breathing from an alternate air source---stat.) and had 5 skills to show, without teaching them. In the classroom, I had to teach about rescueing a serious near drowning victim. For Sunday, I had to prepare the rescue of an unconscious diver at the surface, "recovering and clearing a regulator" (OK) and the final thing: rigging and lifting an object from the bottom. What the hell??? I've never done this before! You mean I have to TEACH this when I don't even know what a lifting bag looks like? "What do you mean, I have to provide my own lift bag????" Trauma!!! What am I going to do??? Then, "Hey, Cat, you've arranged for tanks and all for tomorrow, right?"
-"Don't you guys provide that?"
-No. Everybody's course director organized that.
-My course director is in Australia....
ARRRRGGGHHH!

Anyways, passed all my written exams and managed to borrow a lift bag and some rope off of one of the course directors, a tank and a weight belt off of another one, books and props for my lesson off of another girl and a "treasure" to retrieve (for my lifting bag---had to provide THAT, too!)

Saturday evening, just before the sun set, the beach was a bit less crowded. I entered the water with my mask and snorkel, my diving torch (my "treasure" for the evening) and the stupid lifting bag to try to figure out how the damn thing worked.... Didn't have a tank, so I just blew in it to see what it looked like.

Needless to say I was mortified on Sunday! Well, I scored a perfect grade!!! Who knew that could happen? Woo-hoo!!!

I was invited to a couple of parties Sunday evening (basically invited by everybody I borrowed stuff from!) I decided to start my celebration with a bit of spa action! Went for a 3 hour treatment. Divine! Only problem is, returning to my room, I fell fast asleep and never made any of the parties!

Monday, I went on a canoe trip North of Phuket. We visited James Bond island, a few caves and lagoons. All in all, a relaxing day.

Australia, part 3

More photos! Visibility wasn't as good on these dives to take good picture, but still got to see really cool stuff I wanted to share.

Top: soft coral with divers in the back. Taka live-aboard, 22 Dec 2005.

Second: Big maori wrasse. These guys are really curious and friendly. They always come to take a look at divers. Ocean Quest live-aboard, 25 Dec 2005.

Third: Turtle. Craig took this picture with my camera. Good one, no? Calypso II day trip, 7 Jan 2006.

Last: shark. Visibility was not so good on this dive, but this is one of the pictures I had most fun taking. I had never come so close to a shark before. They usually are too fast to get out of site! I came in very slowly and managed to take a picture sideways and another front shot. Calypso II day triip, 7 Jan 2006.

Australia, part 2

Daniel asked for underwater pics of the Great Barrier Reef, so here they are!

Top picture: giant clam, taken while on the Ocean Quest liveaboard, 26 Dec 2005.

Second picture: school of fusiliers, same trip.

Third picture: cuttle fish and butterfly fish following along, same trip. Current was quite strong during this dive. I'm surprised the picture came out this well.

Fourth picture: trumpet fish (might be a Chinese trumpet fish, but I am not sure), same dive, while surfacing. On this dive, my buddy (an Instructor from Israel) and I got reprimanded for staying in too long---everybody was waiting for us. It was still worth it!

Two last pictures: Clownfish (2 different species) are really hard to photograph; the little suckers are always moving around so much! Did you know that these guys are ruled by a female (the biggest anemone fish) and have a bunch of little males around. Once she dies, the strongest male then becomes a female. The red clown fish picture was taken while aboard Calypso II, Eddie Reef, 7 Jan 2005. The other one was taken while on Taka, Cod Hole, 21 Dec. 2005.

The holidays are over? Already???

Well, I just came back from Australia on Sunday and as usual, I need a holiday to get over my holiday! I had a good time doing the Instructor Development Course and met many nice people, during the course and on the many boat trips I took out to the Great Barrier Reef. The diving was pretty good, but definitively not the best I have done. The diving was also more expensive than what I'm used to. I guess that's what you get for going to such a popular destination!

First live-aboard I jumped on after arriving in Cairns was Taka. We jumped on the boat in the evening and arrived at Cod Hole the next morning. This picture is taken there, where our guide fed the potato cod in front of us (the potato cod is the one with the spots).

The next picture was taken night diving, during the same trip. I found this parrot fish hiding in a hole.

This picture was takent on New Year's day, with the other IDC candidates and our course director. From left to right: guess who, Kelly, Keith (our course director) and Craig.

We went altitude diving in a crater lake. It was f***ing freezing down there at 30 meters! Craig said he couldn't even read the numbers on his dive computer he was shaking so hard and Kelly was wearing two freakin' wet suits one over the other! On our second dive there, we went looking for turtles and wanted to keep warm, so we kept above the 6 meter level (that's really shallow!). Didn't see any turtles, but swam though tree branches, saw some local fresh water fish and a lobster. All in all, it was a pretty good day, finishing with a seafood BBQ Craig dragged me to ( wink, wink!) with, among other things, the best crab I've ever had! I had sooooo much food, it earned me quite a reputation....