Jade Down Under

While Sonia was probably stressing over wedding plans Kris and I had been completing our certification to become scuba divers. We went over to Magnetic Island on Thursday morning and started the course at 8:30am. After two days of theory and pool diving we went into the ocean. The ocean dives were okay, swimming a little and then completing skills at the bottom but the best part of the four dives was when we had our two fun dives yesterday. They were awesome! While on the fun dives we saw 2 turtles, a (approx. 2 foot) crayfish, 2 large puffer fish, many sting rays, angel fish, sergeant majors etc. I could go on forever. At one point we stopped and fed the fish which was kinda cool, they eat right from your hand. One bit me but they don't have teeth so it feels like a suck on your finger.

Unfortunately the included accomodation was not so hot. We were sleeping in a large tent (containing two cots) with holes everywhere. The zipper didn't do up properly as the canvas was torn on either side of the zipper and Kristy's cot mattress almost touched the ground when she laid on it. I woke up each morning with new bites all over my body and have reached an uncountable amount from toes to ears. To give you a rough idea of what I'm talking about I have approximately 20 on my right hip alone. As they are itchy (and I have been scratching) my right hip looks like HORRIBLE! This is defintetly the worst area but my whole body seems to itch. I actually look like I have the onset of chicken pox. I'm unsure of what bug turned me into an all night buffet but have been told its probably sand flies. Great. I don't feel any better knowing what caused this. Here are a few pictures. My neck and face are pretty bad as well but as I've said to you before this internet is too slow to load too many pictures.

On top of those little vistors we had possums trying to gain access to our tent. When we first arrived we had been warned by our new friends Amanda (Scottish) and Martin (English) that possums will come into your tent at night - this did not warn us for the panicked feeling you get when they do! The first and second night we were left alone but the final night we had two possums hanging out at the top of the tent (another big hole) and I'm not quite sure what they were doing. Kris and I slammed our hands on the side of the tent walls and they eventually scurried off. They did return shortly after but we were fairly lucky as we're both light sleepers and woke up in time to scare them before they tried to cuddle. Imagine waking up with thousands of bites AND a furry cuddle buddy? No, thanks. I typically like having my bed to myself.

We arrived back to Townsville last night and chilled out watching CSI before heading to bed, a day in the water will wipe anyone out.

Today we don't really have plans. I need to get my underwater film developed and we have passes to go to Reef HQ at some point; I visited there when I first arrived in Townsville. We
will be leaving for Cairns on Thursday so we have a few days to chill out and relax. I'll keep in touch.

So you know: I will be editing these posts next week sometime to include the pictures that go with them. Right now the internet I'm on is soooooo slow that if I tried to load pictures I'd be afraid of a crash and burn.

Talk to you soon.