SSI diving makes you forget things.....

Hi everybody, due to many request of writing my messages in English i'm going to write in english from now on. Some people (melissa) start to learn dutch too well, so i'm switching to english now. I'm now at St. Joseph Technical Highschool (8 mile) from Lae in the office of brother Werner how is having a little nap at the moment. The internet connection is on the good old 56k6 modem wich gives me plenty of time to look around while i'm waiting for the internet pages to load.

The last time i wrote was just after my sailing trip to the whit sundays, that night i said goodbye to all my friends of the boat to take the nightbus to Cairns. That was a pity because i would have liked to stay that evening because it was really nice...so i heard. The nightbus to Cairns was exhausting again i can't sleep on busses so in the morning when we arrived in Cairns i was totally wrecked. We had to wait until 11:00 am to check in the hostel what gave us time to find out which diving course was the best for us. Me and my friend Simon wanted to do it together but he had Astma so he couldn't pass the medical test of the diving course. I signed myself up with CDC Cairns divingschool, a very good choise i would say. The first two days of the course were in the swimmingpool of the divingschool we had to do different practicals in the water and learn some theory as well. At the and of it we had to do an exam, and luckily we all passed. Out of 6 students in our divingclass were 4 dutch people. What a coincedence...or not, we're just preparing because The Netherlands will vanish in the sea eventuelly and then we can survive! After two days on the mainland we went to the Great Barrier Reef with a small dayboat. Almost everybody aboard was seasick after two hours on that rocky boat...except me of course even without seasickness pills.
Once we arrived on the big boat, the Kangaroo explorer we had a big lunch and strait after that our first dive! It was asome, a hole new world has opened for me, the live beneath the sealevel is something totally differtent and has great beaty! The first dive was till 12 meters depth and i was contantly looking for my divebuddy Joy because she was all the time above me, she kept floating up all the time, we looked like a bunch of ducklings following their mum, according to our diveinstructor Rikki.
The second dive at 4.00 pm was much better we sticked together and enjoyed the scenery much more, we saw plenty of tropical fish, jellyfish and some a few turtles that we scratch on the back. Further we saw some amazing coral reefs and they are just as beautiful as the fish who are living there.
The second day we had 3 dives, one at 6.00 am, one at 8.00 am and one at 11:00 am, just enough time before my flight the next day because your last dive has to be 24 hours before a flight with an airplane. Our first dive of day two was an fun dive we didn't have to practice our skill we could just look around and it was beautifull, i've got some pictures but i will upload them later once i have a better connection. The second dive was our certification dive and a camaraman accompenied us and made a great movie of us, for people interested, it will be in Asten within 3 weeks. We had great fun making the movie and doing the dive!!! After that we were all certified divers and we could dive alone at our last 11:00 am dive, so we did and we went through some caves, it was abseloutly amazing!

After our last dive we filled in our logbooks and from now on we can dive on ourselves! Beautiful! At 2:30 pm the little boat came to pick us up again to get back to Cairns, i took my bags and we went back, once i was in Cairns it popped into my head that i forgot my passport and flightichets on the big boat on the reef! And i couldn't get them back in the next 24 hours! So i had to rescedual my flight to PNG, because of the weekend that was nearly inpossible! After all i managed to do that and my next flight was a day later at 7:00 am, it only cost me 100 dollar. So i had another day to spend in Cairns, me and Simon went to the lagoon and spent the whole day their. There was even live music playing a very good day i would say. At night we had a bbq at the lagoon and there i met Odette Janssen from Someren!!! She was almost standing next to me at the BBQ what a coincedence! Whe talked for hours and after the BBQ zijn we er inne goan vatte! (we drank a beer together) That evening turned out to be a very good one. So good that i managed to miss my 7:00 am flight again!! I had to rescedual again, but luckely there were still some places at the 12:00 flight and the connecting flight to Lae as well. So end good all good.

Once i arrived in Port Moresby (PNG) i was in a totally different culture and country than i've ever been before! It struck me right away, at the airport Frans Lenssen was waiting for me and het drove me around Port Moresby for an hour before my connecting flight! I saw the totally different culture and people. For me being a whitman here is very odd for the locals, all the people are looking, waving and smiling to me. Everywhere you can look. It made me very shy in the beginning.
Then i had my connecting flight to Lae and there was Sido van de Werf & a few kids from the school waiting for me to take me to 8-mile thechical highschool now where i'm staying in the same room as my father Piet has Lived in 30 years ago, very special. They treet me very well here, i'm very welcome and feel at ease as well. I even played a soccer game with the children here.
Today we viseted several places in town were they have made an great afford in schooling people, teaching and building the buildings. We also went to JOB builders to see some old friend of Piet (Peter, Tobias & Paulus Billy) I showed them some pictures from 30 years ago and the were very interested. Tonight is the second game of state of origin so i'm wearing my maroon joursey again and i get a lot of support on the street.

My plan is to go to Goroka, then Mt Wilhelm and then Madang for diving, i'll be back in Lae round the 24th of june to celebrate my birthday here!

Till the next time everybody, i hope you can all understand my messages now.

Alleeeeee (bye bye)