ProDive Cairns

Back in Fiji!! Never thought I'd be so grateful to have the shaky unreliable internet back at USP haha. So to continue where I left off, the company we went out on the reef with was called ProDive. We spent 3 days and 2 nights on the ship and did a total of 11 dives (including two night dives).

There were almost 40 of us in all, with 33 passengers and 6 crew members all on one ship. It got quite cozy with all of us!

Gear all ready

But it wasn't until I saw my "bedroom" that I felt like I was truly roughing it for the few days I was out there. It was tiny! My roommate and I could barely maneuver to get out and around each other when we were both inside.

Bunk beds!

My roommate's name is Alisha, she was also my dive buddy as well. She's from Baltimore but has been in Cambodia for the last 9 months so we had a lot in common and became good friends throughout the course of the trip. 

 The eating area was called the "saloon" and had three large tables to fit all of the us. The food was pretty stellar, its been awhile since I've eaten three full meals a day with snacks in between!

The "saloon"

Before each dive, we had a dive briefing to give us some information of the layout of the reef below us, depths, time limits, etc. Arik was our dive master, he's from Poland. Our other crew members included people from England, Sweden, Holland, and South Africa-it was a pretty cool mix of people!

The trip went by so fast, we were literally either diving, sleeping, or eating. Not much time for anything else! Biggest nature sighting was a whale shark on our last dive. I didn't know what it was at first...we just saw this huuge massive thing in the water, honestly I thought it was a ship sinking at first haha. Then we saw the spots and put two and two together, but it was still scary seeing how big it was! I didn't realize how uncommon it was to see it until we had gotten back to the boat and realized how jealous those who missed it were. My favorite was still the sea turtles, they're so graceful when they swim and look goofy when trying to use their fins to help them eat their food. 

Everyone right before our last dive briefing

Definitely a once in a lifetime experience that I will treasure for a lifetime. Lots of interesting people from all over the world and plenty to see under the water. I learned the best way to experience diving in a particular area is by doing a liveaboard trip. Because we were there for 3 days, we had enough time to get to some more secluded and far out places on the reef as opposed to the reefs closer to shore that the day trips visit. The better pictures of animals are on my previous post so check them out if you haven't!

Found Nemo :)