Mo (right) cringes as he recalls his first night dive, but that's nothing a night in an Aussie pub won't fix.

"WOOHOO!" Karen yelled. "The storm won't be getting that near us, but it should make this night dive more fun! Hurry up everyone and suit up!" Karen and the rest of the dive masters whooped it up, while I questioned their sanity. Crap, she was always too uppity! I didn't feel too confident about it, to say the least. This was going to be my first night dive; and doing it as a storm approached wasn't getting me as excited as Karen nor the rest of the dive masters.

"Yo," I said to Charlie, my dive buddy. "You see that shit? That storm looks pretty strong." Charlie, a young Aussie from Melbourne on holiday with his wife, looked at me unconcerned. "Aw, mate this is nothing. I'm sure if the storm was going to hit us we wouldn't be going in. This should be fun anyway. I'm looking forward to seeing some of the sealife that comes out at night. Never done a night dive like this before, though."

A gust of hot, dry wind nearly blew me backwards. "Me neither," I said to Charlie. "It gets me nervous. Say listen, don't be surprised if I'm the first one to use up my air, okay? I have a tendency to eat it up when I'm nervous like this."

Charlie looked at me incredulously as he threw on his fins. "Mate, don't worry about it. It'll be all good." So I reluctantly suited up, Charlie throwing on the rest of his equipment and reassuring me that if it were dangerous, they wouldn't let us go in.

By the time we were ready to get in the Zodiac boats, the water was really churning. Small whitecaps could be seen where the floodlights off the stern hit the water. Geez. Perhaps it was the fact that I had never done this before? I know that when you're startled or scared things seem a lot bigger than they're supposed to be. But looking at the swells on the water got me nervous. The two empty Zodiac boats trailing behind the mothership were jumping in and out of the water, like bucking broncos. Those boats were going to bring us to our dive sites, but the waves made me wonder exactly how the hell we were all going to get in them without falling in the drink from all the instability of the water. After a quick snapshot by Charlie's wife, we got in line to board the Zodiacs.

Gulp.

I was on the Oceania, a dive boat in based in Airlie Beach, Australia. Airlie Beach was the entrance to the Whitsunday Islands, in North Queensland. The middle of the Great Barrier Reef runs just outside it, and everyone who comes to that area of Oz is looking for either a good time at the many bars and clubs that are concentrated in the area, or for fantastic diving on the reef. Sometimes both, as in my case.

The Oceania operation was a good one. After much thought, I chose the best dive operation in town since I could afford it. My friend Andrew, who came up to Airlie with me from Brisbane, chose another dive boat. He was getting his certification as an open water diver. Unfortunately when he returned from his cruise he said his boat was a bit of a clunker – being a converted fishing trawler. The Oceania on the other hand, was a high-tech ship. Made for diving, it had 30 bunks, a large galley, and several showers and toilets. The bridge was automated; all the captain had to do was put in the waypoints as to where he wanted to go, and the GPS system followed it.

The power of this exciting catamaran was good enough to get us to the reef in only a few hours as well. The price was right too. For only US$240 I could get to live on one of the better dive boats in the region, and do 10 dives along the reef, going to different spots each day. Add to that being fed three times a day, with the 7-strong man and woman crew catering our needs. That beat laying around the youth hostel boozing away the evenings, that's for sure.

Two of the other dive masters, a guy named John and another named Chris, pulled on the ropes of the two trailing Zodiacs, reeling them in. They then whisked all of us into the boats as quickly as possible, minding us to keep our weight solidly in the center of the boats so that the rough water didn't dunk us. To calm myself down I thought back to my days in the military; I knew a guy who was an Air Force Pararescueman, a guy with the last name of Kakis. He went through some incredible water training in order to be in that group of elite medics. His water training was 5 times as worse as this; I'm sure if he would've seen this water, he would've laughed at how nervous I was. It wasn't really that dangerous at all. But after we were given a briefing on what we were supposed to see down in the inky blackness (luminous sea creatures, jellyfish, octopuses, reef sharks who will be on the hunt) I wasn't too thoroughly excited.

Once I was in my boat, I leaned in as far as I could go as the Zodiac bounced up and down on the waves. Spray would leap up over the bow, getting us dressed for the soaking we were about to receive once we hit the water. I looked back at the driver, who was the sea captain of the boat. He held the motor stick in one hand cranking the engine at full power, the other hand holding a flashlight, looking for the large buoy that indicated where our reef was. He balanced on the stern of the Zodiac with no problem at all, the waves soaking him from head to toe. His thin lanky ruggedness told me he had done this so many times before.

We all turned on our flashlights as we neared the buoy that appeared out of the blackness. Suddenly, the horizon was lit up by globs of lightning bursting forth from a cloud; the strands quickly shooting their way across the sky, like tentacles almost reaching for the opposite side of the horizon. As the streams worked their way across the atmosphere they lit up the innards of the surrounding clouds. Dark and light gray clouds immersed the bolts. Wow. It was quite beautiful!

After a final equipment check our guide for the evening, a dive master named Claire told us again to look for her red chemlight as soon as we hit the drink. She sat at the bow of the Zodiac, speaking loudly and clearly so that we all heard her. We were to follow her down, keeping not too far away. She would point out things of interest to us with her light, which we could swim closer to and observe. She reiterated that if something went wrong or if a dive pair had to surface because of lack of air, to let her know.

So on the count of three we all hit the water, rolling over the side of the boat. I felt weird as I went head-over-fins into the water. This time, the water being so black disoriented me; the only illumination was whatever the light beams hit, which thus far were only the multicolored suits of the other divers.

"Okay," Claire yelled as we all floated in the water, our BCDs (air vests) full. "Get down to 18 meters, and follow me. Remember, at 100 bar, I want you on the surface. Make sure you all stay with your dive buddies!" I looked for Charlie, who was right next to me. I caught sight of him as the waves bobbed him up a few feet in the darkness. I gave him the down signal, he returned it, and we deflated out vests.

We went down, feet first.

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