Seahorse or Sea horse?

I am OFFICIALLY scuba certified. Whohoo! And it was a LOT of fun! Friday (yesterday) we finished our course with Abyss Diving by diving 3 (THREE!) times at the reef we dived at last Friday. We saw so many cool things!

In our first dive, we saw whole schools of fish called Australian Mado. We also saw a nudibranch - which is hard to describe. And of course, we saw the big blue fish - the Eastern Blue Groper. (we saw him last friday.) And this time we brought food which he liked a lot! I guess it kinda looks like a slug - but not slimy - and beautifully colored. (My biology friends who read this blog will probably nail me for this poor description, but whatever - this is why I'm an engineer, not a biology major! Side note: today I saw a blue and red bird that looked like a parrot. Allison, who also saw it, laughed at that description. I think it was effective.) Anyway, that was pretty cool! We stayed underwater for 39 minutes at a depth of ~25 feet.

But the next dive was even cooler! We saw TWO Giant Cuddlefish! And TWO Old Wives (which are a fish named because they make all sorts of chatter when you annoy them - at least that's what i was told). And a long finned pike. And TWO Biscuit Stars (red and white star fish with the typical 5 legs). And we dived even deeper - to about 30 feet, and for 38 minutes!
The last dive was by far the coolest because we found even more stuff! We dived to a little over 30 feet for 48 minutes. (As you can see we are learning to conserve our air more effectively). We saw a really big star fish. He (She?) had 12 legs! And we saw a cute little yellow baby box fish, another nudibranch, a trunk fish, a red rock cod (pretty cool, I was looking right at him and didn't see him until the dive instructor nudged him so he would swim a little!), and a Crested Horn Shark! Yes, I dove with a shark! And I was only about 10 feet from him, but don't worry mom, he's not too dangerous ;) And to top it off, as I was swimming to shore, I saw a few jellyfish! very cool. On top of that, we saw a sea horse! A real sea horse - or rather a sea rocking horse! As we were swimming along our dive instructor started tugging on this rusted piece of something and turns it upright. It was a rocking horse - you know, like the thing you play on when you are 4 - yeah! I tried to sit on it, but it fell over.

That last dive wrapped up our training course. We got a packet filled with goodies, like a dive journal - to keep track of everything you see on your dives - and a dive chart - so you know how long you can stay under the water before your body becomes filled with too much nitrogen --> very helpful - and some other stuff. So far I have dived a total of 2 hours and 29 minutes!

However, by the end of this study abroad, that number will be a lot higher! I have decided to definitely do a weekend diving trip to Cairns. (I don't know if I mentioned it earlier.) I've been debating it for a week, and came up with my decision. It'll cost a bit of money, but for what I get to do, it's an AWESOME deal! On March 25, I am leaving with a group for Cairns, from which we will take a 3-day/2-night cruise to the Great Barrier Reef and go diving. We will live on board the ship (obviously) and do 10 dives - 2 of which are night dives! That will be AWESOME! I cannot wait!

Scuba Diving is quickly becoming a very fun hobby!