Blairgowrie

I woke up nice and early to come into my 2nd day at dive school. We got straight into it and got into our bathers. The wet suit hadn't dried properly yet so that was a killer but at least my togs were dry.

We assembled our gear and slapped it onto our backs. Today we had to practice skills in the tank which is a 5m deep concrete cylinder that apparently claustrophobic people get scared of. As I jumped in like a penguin, the cold water kissed my skin and I was instantly shivering.
My arms are too long... Everyone laughed at how dorky I looked with my little arms poking out so much. Everyone else's came to their wrists or longer :(

The pool temperature was NOTHING compared to the tank. We got reassured that the tank water would be nothing compared to the sea. I was not looking forward to that.

We had to show her that we were able to handle ourselves if our mask was to fall off or if our breathing apparatus came out.

We surfaced and let the boys have their go. So I went with Cait and Erin to grab a coffee, I was so exhausted that I decided to have a little mocha. I enjoyed that mocha so much, the guy was awesome at making coffee! I even complimented him dearly.

We packed up and all got into our individual cars to drive for about 2 hours to the Mornington Peninsula to dive in the ocean. I hopped in with Chris and we grabbed Maccas on the way.

We were adamant on avoiding toll roads so we got totally lost and confused and ended up being the last ones there.

We quickly got into gear and headed down the jetty. The first dive was just me and the girls, I gotta admit that the temperature was super dooper icy Snow Queen freezing! The view wasn't that spectacular either compared to the Great Barrier Reef so I was a little bored.

I did get to see an adorable puffer fish that looked like a chubby cherub of the sea. I also saw hermits, crabs, starfishes and sea urchins. And... that's about it.

The current was ebbing a little so it was difficult to swim against. At one point the sea just took me off and threw me straight into the jetty pole and my instructor. Hahahaha!

We then hopped out and I couldn't withstand the cold. The wind was coming at me in all directions and no shelter was helping me. I found the best thing to do was to lie down and just cop the wind in your face but keep your buttocks.

We waited for the boys to have their first dive then we all went back to the van to get bigger cylinders. I COULD NOT CARRY THIS CYLINDER AT ALL. It was way too heavy and big. Its not because I was lazy or couldn't be bothered, it was just not in my physical capacity to carry. I tried rolling it and etc. Nothing worked. Me and this other girl were left behind trying to carry our cylinder metre by metre as everyone got ready at the end of the pier.

Our instructor made us wait an hour as she decided whether the tide was too much for us to handle. She was on the phone for ages debating whether they should do it or not, and she was on her phone trying to read tidal charts. She decided we would just go and do it.

I ended up damaging my wrist from trying to carry that ghastly aluminum object. I finally got to the end, geared up and jumped in. The current was CRAZY by then. I tried to hold on but the current was slapping me against the jetty and it hurt!

Whack! Whack! Whack! It just kept on coming. One of my fins kept loosening up too so all these pressures started shooting trepidation down my spine. We all entered the water and held onto the track line. There was little visibility, and it made it worse that the person in front would just kick sand up into your vision. We got deeper and deeper and the current got stronger and stronger.

We all struggled to keep to our straight lines. Suddenly we had no visibility at all as the sunlight had left us and we were stuck in the sea of night. I never ever wanted to do night diving and this was worse as none of us had torches. As we headed back we all ended up surfacing as the current pushed us up and we were all stuck on the wrong side of the huge concrete barge. I was scared. I was so scared.

It was dark, the current was strong and people started fretting about. We had to go down again to get to the other side of the concrete wall because swimming around it would take forever.

As we surfaced up the conditions were getting worse and our energy was spent fighting the current. One of the older men started running out of breath and a girl couldn't stay afloat to breathe. It was getting scary.

By then my breathing was also feeling restrained and I was going into hyperventilation. We didn't have time to swim to the lower landing to get out safely so we had to climb the huge ladder. This was too difficult with the large cylinder that I couldn't physically carry.
This is the little cylinder I want to keep forever! Even the little one I still find hard to carry haha!

I had to get dragged up and thrown across the jetty floor. I felt like a whale out of water and I instantly unzipped all my clothing and buoyancy compensator vest to try and breathe in and out.

I attended to Alan who was cut short of breath. We finally all scrambled out. Chris carried my vest and I carried everyone's weights and fins. It was about 30kg worth of weights and I was suffering.

The instructor was in an annoyed and pissed off mood. We knew that she had put us in danger and she was reacting to worry. We had one more theory session that day but as we came up at 7pm - she just sent us home.

I drove the 2 hours home, and we grabbed Maccas for dinner too. Chris and I couldn't stop talking about how scary that was. I didn't even think about the cold as the current and night scared me more.

I gotta admit that as anxiety creeped up on me, I started thinking of scary things underwater.

I was scared for the third and last day, but I crashed to bed. AJ came home and just said WOAH when she saw how white and exhausted I was.

Never again!