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While Cooktown may be Queensland's northern most town, Cairns (pronounced cans) is the northern most city. Arriving in Cairns we felt that we were back in civilization again for the first time since leaving Darwin three weeks earlier. There were sky scrapers (well, 10 story buildings) big hotels and lots of people. We could not get a berth in the marina, so we ended up heading up river to anchor. We found a spot that had very good protection but far from anywhere. It was a two mile dingy ride to get to either of the two docks that we could use. Meno and Inke left the boat in Cairns. They wanted to purchase a car and drive down the rest of the coast. I wanted to stay for a while so I could do some diving on the reef. Phil also took off after a couple of days rest trying to make a quick run to Sydney. Once Meno and Inke cleared off the boat, I signed up for a four day open water dive class. This is the entry level scuba diving course. Two days in the swimming pool and two days in the ocean. I really enjoyed myself except for the fitness test (swim 200 meters and then tread water for 10 minutes). I thought I was going to have a heart attack about the time the instructor told us we could get out of the pool. The diving on the reef was very interesting. Not terribly spectacular as the place we went to was where they take all of the new trainees. With a continuous stream of clumsy novices going over the same area, the coral was pretty beat up. But I still had lots of fun even if I was the oldest person in the class by about 20 years. During the stay out at the reef, we slept in a "floating hotel" where I met Sarah. She was the only other American that I had come across since Dave and Dave left in Darwin. I was looking for crew and she was looking for a ride south. So I had one crew. Never did find another one, I did not worry to much about it though as I would be picking up Andrew at Townsville 2 days to the south.
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