Two of our newly qualified Dive Masters (Paul & Chantelle) are heading off for a year of traveling around the world. Paul and Chantelle have kindly agreed to maintain a page on our website while they are working and diving their way around many exotic locations.

Check back here regularly to see what they have been up to and how becoming a Dive Master has enriched their travels.

First stop; The Caymans.

We haven't had much opportunity to use our new Divemaster qualification in the Cayman Islands because of a situation with the work visas. Basically you can't work in Cayman unless you have a work visa, which cost a lot of money so employers want dive professionals to sign up on long contracts. We have however done a few few pleasure dives and the scenery is wonderful. We dived mainly out of sunset www.sunsethouse.com  

We dived with rays, turtles, conch, lobster, barracuda and even the Atlantis submarine, not to mention the countless 'regular' fish! We stopped at Eldemires guest house and would thoroughly reccomend staying here (especially if your on a budget!). www.eldemire.com

We hopefully have a few underwater photos coming from our last dive, i'll post them when they arrive.

We won't be getting back in the water for a while now as we're doing a trip in South America and we won't get to Australia until 28th August. If you want to look at the rest of our 'Gap Year' photos please feel free. www.ilson82.spaces.live.com

Rio Prata, Bonito, Brazil

We are now in Bonito a beautiful little town in Brazil.  We have travelled through Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Argentina and are on the last leg of this trip before we fly to Australia.

Yesterday we did an excellant river snorkel trip where we floated down a crystal clear river looking at all the amazing fish along the way.  The water was nice and warm and the fish were pretty cool.  You can check out the pictures at www.ilson82.spaces.live.com Whilst we were floating along we saw two Caimans sitting on the river bank!!!

The wildlife here is amazing and we wake up in our campsite to lots of Toucans squawking at each other in the trees!! There are also three parrots at our campsite flying free.  A beautiful river with a waterfall also flows through our campsite-amazing!!!

We fly to Aus in 2 weeks so we will have more diving stories for you all then.

AUSTRALIA

Hi there from sunny Australia.  We have been here for about six weeks now and have travelled from Melbourne up to Byron Bay on the East coast which is where we are now.  We have been working on a horse breeding farm for the past month which was great but we didnt get any diving in until now.

Our first dive in Aus was the other day in Byron Bay.  Offshore they have a underwater marine park around the Julian Rocks which is one of Australias ten best dive sites.  The water was an average 20 degrees which was nice but a little chilly towards the end of the dive.  We saw lots of amazing things and within the first 5 mins we saw a huge loggerhead turtle!! A few minutes later we saw two grey nurse sharks one of which was over 6ft long and quite flighty!!-scary!! We also saw a wobbegong shark which was cool, a huge shoal of Jew fish which are quite tasty apparently and a massive grouper!!  An all round great dive!!

Were off to Brisbane next and heading up towards the great barrier reef which were really looking forwards too.  Will keep you posted.

WHITUSNDAY ISLANDS + BARRIER REEF

We are now in the Whitsunday islands in Northern Queensland in a tropical climate which is nice.  Both Paul and I have got a job on a day boat which goes out to the islands every day and also to the beautiful whitehaven beach.  Check out www.reefjet.com.au we are divemasters/deckhands and take out qualified divers around the reefs of the islands.  So far its been quite daunting being thrown in at the deep end!! but we are learning fast!! The coral out here is amazing and very colourful and tehre are lots of interesting fish to look at.  The snorkelling here is pretty amazing aswell.  We see dolphins and turtles on a regular basis alongside the boat!

Last week we went out on a sailing boat to the outer reef-the great barrier reef and dived a place called Bait Reef whcih was pretty good.  We saw some big humpheaded parrot fish whilst we were out there which was cool!!

SS YONGALA WRECK DIVE

Wow what an amazing dive!! Yesterday we went to Ayr in Queensland and dived the SS Yongale a passenger ship which sunk in 1911 in a cyclone.  All 112 passnegers on board died along with a racehorse and a bull!!

We went out on a rib for the worst 45mins of our life over some really bad surge to reach the wreck but the dive was definately worth it!!

Once in the water we saw lots of HUGE fish-groupers, cod, barracuda, sea snakes and a massive ray.  We also saw a strange shark/ray called a humpheaded ray or a guitar shark!!  We also saw turtles and thousands of beautiful smaller fish.  I would throughly recommend this if you ever get to come to Australia as I think its the best dive Ive ever done.  Check out the website at www.yongaladive.com.au