Below is a recap of Days 7-15 of my PADI Divemaster Course at Deep Sea Divers Den in Cairns, Australia and the Great Barrier Reef.
To read about Days 1-6, see Part 1 here.
To read about Days 16-18, see Part 3 here.
You can see all my favorite photos from the trip here and watch my favorite videos here.
Day 7: Shadowing a PADI Open Water Diver Course, Day 1
Back to the pool! The PADI Open Water (OW) Diver Course is the course you take to get a basic scuba certification through PADI (by the way, PADI stands for “Professional Association of Diving Instructors”).
Part of the divemaster training is to shadow and assist an instructor leading students through the OW course. This is because divemasters are certified to assist with the OW course. Makes sense.
The day started at 8 at the Divers Den training center. I shadowed Kat, a Danish instructor who’s been in Australia for about 8 months. Kat and I set some equipment and paperwork up, then headed into town to pick up the students.
Typically, OW students at Divers Den spend 2 days at the training facilities, then 2+ days on a boat at the reef. The 2 days in town are each split between classroom and pool time. For this class though, some of the students had completed the coursework online and weren’t arriving till the second day. This meant that the 3 students starting on day 1 had to spend the whole day in the classroom to catch up.
The result of this: there wasn’t much for me to do. I watched while Kat led the students through the knowledge development sections of the course book, and we chatted about diving for a bit while the students took their written exam.
I was back at my hostel by 3, so I took a quick nap before getting to work on prepping my spring engineering classes in the evening.
Day 8: Shadowing a PADI Open Water Diver Course, Day 2
After spending the whole day in the classroom yesterday, we spent the entire day in the water today. We had 5 “dives” to get through in the pool, which is quite a lot for beginners to do all in one day. But Kat was a great teacher and the students picked everything up amazingly quickly, so we actually ended up finishing by 3 again. Kat and I dropped the students off at their hostels, then went back to the shop to wrap up a few things. I was back at Dreamtime (my hostel) at 5.
That evening, the hostel hosted a barbeque and Christmas trivia game (it was Christmas eve, after all). Afterwards, I walked down to the Cairns marina and did some stargazing. While I was out, I saw a few of Queensland’s infamous spectacled flying foxes. These things are absolutely massive, with a wingspan of up to 1.5 meters!
Day 9: Off
Off day! Oh by the way, it was Christmas. Hence the off day.
I didn’t have presents to open or family around to annoy, so I spent the day working on engineering teaching things.
Day 10: Shadowing a PADI Open Water Diver Course, Day 3
My first day at the Great Barrier Reef – finally! I’d been in Cairns for over a week at this point, so it was about time to go diving.
Deep Sea Diver’s Den has a big operation, with 3 large boats that make daily trips to the outer Great Barrier Reef and one liveaboard boat that accommodates 48 guests and 15-20 crew members and stays overnight at the reef. I was heading out on a 4 day/3 night trip to the liveaboard (Ocean Quest), but to get there you have to take one of the day trip boats (Sea Quest) and transfer over.
Sea Quest left the marina sometime around 8:30 in the morning, and it took about 90 minutes to get to Ocean Quest and Saxon Reef, where we did all our dives for the day. Saxon Reef is one of approximately 3,000 reefs that make up the Great Barrier Reef.
My main task for the day was to shadow/assist with a PADI Open Water (OW) class. The students had already done all of their classroom and pool work, and just had to complete 4 dives over the course of 2 days to become certified divers.
Our first dive was at a spot called Sandra’s. The water temperature was perfect at 28C (82F). Since I was with OW students, our max depth was just 12m (40 ft) and the dive was just 38 minutes long (their air doesn’t last as long as it does for experienced divers). Still, it was a great intro to the Great Barrier Reef – highlights included titan triggerfish, feather stars, and the infamous anemonefish.
After the first dive, we ate lunch and jumped back in for our second dive. This time, the dive site was called Clipper. We kept the depth to 12m again, but I managed to make the dive last 50 minutes (the limit Diver’s Den imposes on all its divers). This time, we saw a gorgeous flatworm, several anemonefish, including a few Nemo lookalikes, and a few anemone shrimp.
Those of us staying overnight transferred from Sea Quest to Ocean Quest after the second dive, and once on board the new vessel, were quickly whisked away for our next dive (my third of the day). This was the final dive of the day for the OW students, because their 4 dives must occur over the course of 2 days. We stayed at Saxon Reef, but moved to the Coral Gardens dive site. This dive was only 42 minutes.
After dinner, I was back in the water for my 4th dive of the day, a night dive. This one was just a fun dive for me, so I joined another group of divers who were volunteering on the boat in exchange for free diving (they call them “hosties”). We dove for 40 minutes at Coral Gardens. Night dives are my favorite and this one was no exception: we saw all sorts of tiny crabs and shrimp in the coral that don’t come out during the day. We also saw several white-tip reef sharks. Since it was a fun dive rather than a training dive, I was able to get some photos:
Banded coral shrimp.
Shark!
Clam.
Day 11: Shadowing a PADI Open Water Diver Course, Day 4; Shadowing a PADI Advanced Open Water Course, Day 1
It was a long day so it would be far too long to write it out in paragraph form. Instead, here’s a summary:
Schedule:
5:20: wake up
5:30: help crew set up for 1st dive
6:15: begin 1st dive – search and recovery scenario (I had to search for a weight belt and recover it using a lift bag)
7:30: breakfast
8:45: begin 2nd dive (shadow/assist with the 4th and final dive for the OW students)
9:45: help crew clean and prep deck
11:00: most people set out for 3rd dive. I did a rescue exercise instead.
12:00: help crew prepare the deck for the new group of divers arriving from Sea Quest
12:30: lunch
13:00: break (rinse off; look at photos from yesterday’s night dive; write blog)
14:30: assist with briefing for PADI Advanced Open Water (AOW) Course (3 students). Help crew after.
15:30: assist with AOW dive 1: peak performance buoyancy dive (3rd dive of day). Help crew after.
16:30: assist with AOW book work/knowledge reviews
18:00: dinner
19:00: assist with AOW dive 2: night dive (4th dive of day). Help crew after.
20:00: dessert
22:00: bedtime
Highlights:
Found a couple blue-spotted stingrays during the search and recovery scenario
Saw 2 nudibranchs on the 2nd dive
Aced the rescue exercise
Saw a glorious flatworm (pseudobiceros gloriosus) on 1st AOW dive
Saw a ton of blue-spotted stingrays, coral crabs, and white-tip and reef sharks during night dive
Great Barrier Reef.
Clownfish.
Porcelain crab.
Day 12: Shadowing a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver Course, Day 2
Schedule:
5:20: wake up
6:15: assist with AOW dive 3: deep dive (1st dive of day). Help crew after.
7:30: breakfast
8:45: assist with AOW dive 4: boat dive (2nd dive of day). Help crew after.
10:45: assist with AOW dive 5 (final dive of the AOW course): navigation dive (3rd dive of day). Help crew after.
12:30: lunch
13:00: break (look at photos; write blog; rest)
15:30: deep dive scenario (4th dive of day)
18:00: dinner
19:00: fun dive! Did the fluoro diving. (5th dive of day)
20:00: dessert
22:00: bedtime
Highlights:
Saw a large group (~30) of bumphead parrotfishes
Hung out with batfishes swimming around out under the boat
Spotted 2 sets of clownfish
Found a tiny purple nudibranch
Saw a porcelain crab hiding in coral
Saw a pipefish (closely related to seahorses)
Spotted a hawksbill sea turtle (twice)
Saw a few “Dory” fishes (blue tangs)
On the fluoro dive, saw coral and some fish/invertebrates fluorescing under UV light
Saw loads of reef sharks at the end of the night dive
Many tiny fishes.
Fish hanging out.
A beautiful nudibranch.
Pipefish.
Batfish.
Day 13 – Last day of this boat trip
Schedule:
5:20: wake up
6:15: Completed Discover Scuba Diving workshop with two instructors acting as my students (1st dive of day). Help crew after.
7:30: breakfast
8:45: Conduct mapping project of dive site – pic of map is included below (2nd dive of day). Help crew after.
11:00: skin diving workshop
12:30: lunch
13:00: break (work on making map pretty; complete logbook; rest)
15:00: transfer back to Sea Quest;
16:30: return to Cairns
18:00: dinner
19:00: rest
Highlights:
Saw another blue-spotted stingray
Found a cute baby white-tip shark
Saw a hawksbill turtle up close
Played with a big friendly cuttlefish
My dive site map!
View from below.
Tiny fishes.
A cute couple.
Day 14 & 15: Off
Another break! I spent Day 14 sleeping and working on prepping my classes for the spring semester. I spent Day 15 sleeping and working on this blog post!
Next up: Finishing the PADI Divemaster Course
Today I head back to the Great Barrier Reef for the last portion of my divemaster course! Things still left to complete include:
- Dive briefing
- Discover local diving in open water workshop
- Lead certified divers in open water
Dives so far this trip: 15
Total dives: 63
To read PADI Divemaster Course in Cairns, Australia (Part 1), click here!
To read PADI Divemaster Course in Cairns, Australia (Part 3), click here!
To see all my favorite photos from the trip, click here!
To watch my favorite videos from the trip, click here!
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