Cairns and Diving the Great Barrier Reef

Arrived in Cairns on the 8th August to find the town buzzing with Saturday night revellers, a definite party town, as the YHA was situated in the centre of town, needless to say sleep was somewhat difficult!
The course started on the Monday, lasting 5 days, the first 2 in the classroom and Pro-Dives' pool, followed by 3 days on the Great Barrier Reef on their boat. Our instructor, Dave, was very good in his role and were it not for his superb efforts many of us would not have got through the course. The first 2 days proved to be a steep learning curve but I was considerably relieved to pass both the medical and the water tests, the first hurdle. After an exam at the end of the second day, all 16 of us were ready to go to the reef and continue the course in open water, and what a truly amazing experience it proved to be. The weather conditions were perfect, and over the 3 day period we had 7 dives, including a night dive (quite daunting). After dive 4, having passed the Open Water Course allowing us to dive to 18 metre depths, we had the option of completing the Adventure Dive Course. This enabled you to dive to 30 metre depths, particularly useful if wanting to dive to wrecks, so for relatively little cost , only 3 further dives plus study, decided to take this extra challenge and 24 hours later became a certified PADI Adventure Diver. Returning to Cairns in the afternoon of the 3rd day at sea was quite sad as we had all worked well together, particularly my dive buddy, Jonathon (also from England). We all met that evening and had a night out on the town, though I was pretty exhausted and left fairly early, especially after the long day that started at 5.45am with the first dive at 6.30am!
To recover from the intensive work of the past week I booked a 4 day visit to Cape Tribulation starting Sunday 16th August, though managed to squeeze in a chinese massage before leaving for the cape. (unfortunately am unable to upload all my photo's onto the blog until returning to Yandina)
Photo 1. The green turtle we were able to photograph on our last dive.
Photo 2. Again the final dive showing the variety of coral, and fish on the reef.
Photo 3. My last dive though it would have been better to have taken the photo on an 'in' breath!
Photo 4. Jon and I before stating the last dive on the dive deck, all booted and suited ready to go.