townsville - day 6

DAY 6 - 27 Aug

Know what today is? MY FIRST DIVE LESSON!!!!

Woke up and had cereal with a banana. Peter dropped me off at school and I met Gregg, a Welsh dive instructor. He's just moved to Townsville with his wife who is a Neurologist. Lucky for him he got the fun job :) My instructor is Davide, from Rome. Gregg is training under Davide as an instructor for Pro Dive, as he's never taught with this company before. My only classmate was Ross, from Melbourne. He's up to the area for the week with two diving pals of his. We started class with ...

Oh wait, I remember what I spent time doing on Saturday and Sunday - STUDYING! We had to read the first three chapters (2/3 of the book!) before class today. Neither Ross nor I finished, we both got halfway through. I couldn't believe the amount of material. And I wasn't expecting the self-study. Anyway, we watched the DVDs of the first three chapters while Davide and Gregg got our gear ready. The DVDs were good, we completed quizzes (knowledge reviews) afterwards and all went over the answers. It's simple stuff, except for the physics stuff that I've never really liked... it was like being in Dr. Malik's lecture hall all over again!!!

So then we had a lunch break. Ross and I went to Woolworths to get some snacks for later. I only needed granola bars and juice, but ended up getting Doritos too since it's been a while :) heh I love snacks. We ate lunch nextdoor to Pro Dive at the backpacker's hostel, where Ross and his friends were staying. I had a huge sanger (sandwich) of chook (chicken), potato salad, tomato and sugar snap peas.

After lunch we changed into our swimmers and headed to the pool! We tackled the wetsuits and setting up the gear (tank, BCD, regulator, etc) and then putting it on with help from our buddy (for me, it was Ross... my only classmate!). Next, we prepped and put on snorkels and fins, then learned how to properly jump into the water. It was cold! My wetsuit was a bit big and let the cold water run through it too easily for my liking. So we did our first two confined dives today and learned the basics. Pretty cool!

Peter picked me up from school today. We had to run a few errands before heading home. Dinner tonight was beef curry, basmati rice, tomatoes, cucumber yogurt, two different lime thingys (totally gross) and Pavlova for dessert, YUM-O! I was totally exhausted from today's learning and diving, so I had a two hour nap after dinner! Then I woke up and had to study some more... chapters 4 and 5. Needless to say I was up late trying to get it all done...

An exhausting and fun-filled day! :)