STCW 95, Sydney, Spearfishing Tasman Sea & Snags..all the good s's

Almost 1 month in Australia and the adventures seem to never end. The last week was action packed with fire fighting, sea survival, first aid, and a little unwinding from the week in the Tasman Sea spearfishing. All followed by BBQ'ing snags on the beach. The sea survival was at the Qantas Jet Base South of Sydney around the airport. We were required to jump from a plane fully clothed into a pool that wasn't exactly warm and stay in the water for around 3 hours. They also turn off all lights and turn all the sprinklers on(sprinkler water was colder than the pool.) The idea was to get you as close to hypothermia while still performing rescue operations and basic survival skills. There were 20 of us taking the class and each was assigned a number. So in the dark rain everybody had to shout there number to make sure everybody was accounted for. We then inflated a life raft meant for 10 people and practiced different procedures for getting (everybody) in and pulling wounded people up. A major lesson taught is that the last place you want to be is in a life raft. They are shockingly unstable, tiny and only have food and water for the 10 people for 3 days, tops. There have been many cases in which people abandon ship, when there was not necessarily a need, get into there life raft and have never been found. Only to find there vessel still floating and intact a couple days later. Everybody was pretty cold at the end and relieved that it was over. That was really cool but the highlight for me was the spearfishing. My buddy Josh has a 14 foot little boat with a 115hp yamaha motor pushing it. Anybody familier with the boating world knows that that is a heck of a lot of power for a craft that size. He took us out of the sheltered waters of Pittwater into the Tasman Sea offshore of the Newport Beach area. We found a reef about 1/2 mile offshore and geared up for some free diving. I was the second in the water and found myself able to go around 20-30 feet deep and drift with the noticeable surge that was ripping around the reef. There was a double/triple overhead wave breaking at the end that looked pretty devastating and made drifting close kinda hairy. All in all the visibility was not so good so no one got anything. Surprisingly I felt pretty good in the water considering there has been nothing but shark attack reports in the area lately, no deaths, just nibbles. Not to say I wasn't watching my back the whole time and had a very strong feeling about not dangling my feet in the water. The local affect of the weather was setting in by lunch and winds reached around 15-20 knots with some sizable swell. It was a rough ride into Pittwater you could say. All was well though and we stopped in a nice bay and had a little lunch and a snorkel. Perfect ending to a great week. This coming Monday I go on my offshore mile builder for 12 days with 24 hour sailing, which entails shifts with watch keeping and graveyards. Should log over 800 sea miles and cover some fantastic new territory. Then a week off, then 6 more days in which the last day is the practical exam in which I obtain my Yachtmaster! Then.....job?? Lets hope so. As always, more to come........