I woke up early today and walked to Circular Quay to catch a ferry to Manly. The city has a pretty phenomenal transportation system. The more places I visit, I realize how far behind the times Toronto is. I arrived at ProDive in Manly around 9:30 for what I thought was supposed to be a 10 am start (as it stated on my voucher). However, there was some confusion and the group was supposed to meet at 8 am. Luckily there was another group doing an open-water certification at 1pm so I joined them instead. To pass the time in between, I went to the beach. I went for my first swim in the big waves without my "waterwings" (Jake wouldn't let me swim alone for the first while). I also read my book Solitude by Robert Kull. I'm really enjoying it. The book is about a man who goes off to spend a year alone in the wilderness of Patagonia to study the psychological effects of being in solitude.  I must have been really into it, because I didn’t notice myself burning in the sun. The aussi sun is as hot as the aussi womenJ

At 1, I met up with my dive partners, a very nice gay couple from Holland.  Both of them had names that I struggled to pronounce. We did two dives in Shelly Beach. We practiced different scuba skills, and had the opportunity to explore the area. Apparently people in Australia think the water is cold here, so I was given the world’s thickest wet suit in the world to wear. I guess I was grateful in the end because I was toasty in the water. I brought my camera with me and got some great pictures. When Internet doesn’t cost a fortune, I’ll post some good ones.

Tomorrow I head back to Manly to do two more dives. Meeting time is 8:45 so I’ll be up at 6:30 to make the trek down. Its not that far, I just don’t want to be late.

My first night in the hostel was interesting.  My roommates were not very interesting people and smelled really bad. Fortunately, they moved out today and a group of South Koreans moved in. They’re all very nice and wanted to help me carry my massive backpack. They invited me out for drinks, but I’m right tired and will be getting up pretty early.

If you want to know the time difference between here and home in Toronto (or Thunder Bay), Add 4 hours then switch the AM to PM or vice versa. (We’re 16 hours ahead here) Goodnight world.