Exploring Sydney Above and Below the Water

According to Jason, nobody is exactly what they tell you they are in Sydney.  This is probably only true late at night in a bar while getting faced.  And since I was in just that situtation, I decided to test out my new found professions with a guy from Holland and another from Norway.  The first girl we roped in, we told her that we were all down hill skiers from Norway.  That didn’t work so well when she told us she was from Sweden, which, for all of you geography buffs, is pretty close to Norway.  The second story was that we were all dolphin trainers from South Africa.  That one got a few laughs. And finally when I told them I was actually a scuba diver from Fiji, they said to stick to that one.  My newest pick up line after this weekend will be that I am a rescue scuba diver from Fiji.

We did the theory stuff on Wednesday/Thursday night and in water training and scenarios on Saturday and Sunday.  Compared to Fiji, there was 2 meter visibility (40 in Fiji) and the water was maybe 18 degrees Celcius (30 in Fiji).  So it was a bit of a shock at first, but once the scenarios started you had to forget about that crap and focus on saving the victim.  A couple of highlights were doing an underwater search for a guy that went to his car. I was pissed after that one.  And the second was after I saved a guy and dropped our gear in the ocean to get to shore faster, somebody left my gear/tank floating out there. So we had to do a search and rescue for that as well.  All in all, the course was an eye opener to what all can happen out there and how to respond.

Now that the class is over, I can just relax and sight see in Sydney until I go to Fiji next Thursday.

And don’t worry Jeff, I’ll get to do both the sky dive and the booze cruise.  I’m also gonna see Iron Man 2 on some huge IMAX screen in Darling Harbour.  It’s a bummer that Robin Hood comes out the day I leave.