Scuba Diving, the Blue Mountains, and Fine Dining
I love scuba diving because it’s like exploring a whole other world right here on this planet. 2 weeks ago, I flew up to Brisbane and drove to Bundaberg for my scuba diving trip. I originally planned to go scuba diving during Easter break, but had to postpone it due to two cyclones. Aside from it being chillier, the weather was perfect. The first day, I explored Hervey Bay. On the beach, I listened to music and scheduled my dives for the next 2 days. I was amazed by how flat the water was.
Later that night, I continued my drive to Bundaberg and prepared for my dive in the morning. To save money, I slept in the car. I had a breathtaking view of the stars each night. I didn’t have the camera for a long exposure picture, but they looked similar to these.
The next day, I drove to the Aqua Scuba dive shop. We gathered up our regulators, BCDs, snorkel, masks, wetsuits, and fins and headed to the docks.
From there, we loaded our gear into the boat and arrived at the site in around half an hour. On the way, I met my dive partner, Leo. He was an engineer traveling with his girlfriend from France. She was finishing her training and would dive with him during their next dive trip in the Philippines.
When we got to the site, we geared up and dove in. We were diving on an artificial reef. This means that they sunk ships and planes and sea life has inhabited it. For this dive, we were going to a maximum depth of 17 meters. This is a meter shy of the maximum depth that I am certified to dive.
When we got down, we immediately saw a large sunken freight ship. The tour guide showed us groupers, a flounder, and other fish hanging in and around the ship. After that, he swam to bottom of the ship. He continued shining his flashlight under the ship and circled to the back of the ship. Near where the propellers would be, we saw Loggerhead turtles. They were HUGE. Their shell was about a meter wide and about 4 feet long. They also definitely outweighed me by at least 100 pounds. It was truly a breathtaking sight.
Afterwards, we had the opportunity to swim through planes. The cockpit area was full of little yellow fish.
After this, we had to surface. I thoroughly enjoyed exploring the wrecks and seeing how the marine life has inhabited it.
That night, I drove an hour and a half south to Rainbow Beach. I camped out in my car and woke early the next morning for scuba diving at Wolf Rock Dive Center.
I had to arrive early to receive more training for these 2 dives. We would be diving at depths of 30 meters or about 100 feet. In the training, we reviewed how at around 100 feet, you can get “narked”. This means that the concentration of nitrogen in your brain makes you feel like you are drunk. The high nitrogen concentration isn’t inherently dangerous to you. It is the actions that you do while you are in this drunken like state that can be dangerous. For example, I have heard that some people take their regulators out of their mouth or can’t focus properly when needed.
I also learned about new equipment that would be implemented during our advanced dive. If you dive to these depths, you must make a safety stop 5 meters from the surface for 5 minutes so that you can get nitrogen decompression. In case you are running low on air in your tank, you can use the submerged air tank that they have waiting for you at 5 meters. The reason for these safety stops is so that you can safely have the concentrated nitrogen in your blood dissipate out. If you rise too quickly, the nitrogen can form air bubbles in your blood vessels which can be extremely painful and even lethal. It is known as decompression sickness or more commonly known as “the bends.”
Afterwards, we packed our stuff and got on the boat.
This group of divers was significantly more experienced than I was. All of them owned their own equipment and most were using nitrox tanks instead of compressed air. Nitrox tanks have higher concentrations of oxygen than atmospheric air, which lets you stay down longer.
We first dove 30 meters down and ascended as we progressed through our dive. That way we wouldn’t get stuck at the bottom with no air left.
When we went down, my dive instructor James (who looked a lot of Matthew Dellavedova or Delli from the Cavs) showed me how the colors get muted underwater when you get deep. He held out a plastic cutout with all the colors in the rainbow. They looked like different shades of blue and brown. However, when he put his flashlight over it, all of the colors vividly came back. We finished our lesson and then the fun really began.
We swam around the corner and saw over 30 pregnant nurse sharks! Wolf Rock is the breeding grounds for these sharks similar to how turtles come back to the same beach that they were born on to have their babies. These sharks are mostly harmless unless they feel threatened.
After a couple minutes of swimming with the sharks, we continued on with our dive. I saw a rockfish, a lionfish, clownfish and blue tangs (Nemo and Dory), moray eels, lots of batfish, sea urchins, needle nose fish, and many more. However the real treat in the second dive was seeing a manta ray.
The manta ray was very curious and kept circling around us for around 5 minutes. At one point it even almost swam over me! After this, we did our 5 meter safety stop and finished the dive. A dolphin swam next to our boat at the end of the trip!
The next day, I drove back to Brisbane and flew back. Overall, this was an unforgettable trip that I am very glad I did.
When I got back, classes were starting to wrap up. I just finished my last physics and circuits labs. I enjoyed these classes a lot this semester.
On Saturday, Adriana, Jon and I took a day trip to the blue mountains. It was a long train ride there but definitely worth the wait. Here is the Central Station in Sydney.
After a 3 hour train ride, we arrived in Katoomba, the town outside of the blue mountains.
We took a short 10 minute bus and finally arrived at the site. The main attraction at the Blue Mountains is the Three Sisters.
After we took our touristy pictures, we took a long hike along the canyon. The views were so pretty that it would have been hard to get a bad picture.
After an hour long trek, we came to the waterfall.
We had the pleasant surprise of seeing 20-30 cockatoos! I packed lots of snacks in my bag including raisins. The cockatoos LOVED them!
Getting to see these animals in the wild instead of seeing them in a zoo during my trips has made my interactions with them so much more rewarding. After hanging out with the cockatoos, we watched the sun set on the Blue Mountains and then headed home.
On Tuesday, my roommate Shadi was very generous and offered to take Aman, Tom, and me out to eat at a very fancy Middle Eastern restaurant so that I could try proper authentic Jordanian food. We ate at Zahli which is rated as the best restaurant in Sydney in 2017. While we were there, we ordered several appetizers to share and a main course. The appetizers were: falafel, fried kibbeh, hummus and tortillas and sambousek.
For the main course, I had a lamb mansaf.
This was main reason we came to Zahli in the first place. Mansaf Lamb is seasoned rice pilaf with minced meat, topped with slow cooked lamb & roasted nuts, served with cucumber yogurt. I was a little unsure about the yogurt on the meat with nuts, but it tasted FANTASTIC!
Pictured: Aman (back left), Tom (front left), Me (back right), Shadi (front right)
These past 2 weeks have been incredible! I can’t wait to share my adventures in Thailand!
University of New South Wales in Sydney
