Scuba Diving the Great Barrier Reef

What an exciting few days!! I'm so sorry I wasn't able to write for awhile; the boat I've been on for the last few nights did not have wifi. But I'm excited to tell you about all of my adventures while diving the Great Barrier Reef!

Jack and I decided to do a 3 day/2 night live aboard option so we could really get a good bit of diving in. We went through Pro Dive Cairns. We both got our Open Water and Adventure Diver PADI certifications as well during the trip. The boat is mostly made up of others getting their Open Water certs as well, and there are others who are getting advanced certs, some who are already certified and just diving, and others who are just snorkeling. One guy on the boat is from Tulsa! He works on the army base there. What a small world!

The water conditions have been unbelievable. The water is super warm, about 30 degrees Celsius. We don't even wear wet suits but only what they call "stingers", which protects your skin from coral and small jelly fish, as well as the sun. The water visibility has also been amazing; they say it's been about 50 meters! And the wind was pretty tame as well so the boat rocking wasn't too bad. Matt was talking to a guy while we were gone and he said he doesn't think there's ever been a series of 3 days so calm on the GBR ever and that we might've set a record.

The food was pretty good. Every meal they had something hot as well as some lighter options. They do a good job of keeping us fed with snacks as well between dives. The crew is very friendly. Accommodations are pretty basic but that's okay since we don't spend much time in our rooms.

I wrote at the end of each day, so I'm talking about each day on the day that it happened.

Day 1

On our first day they picked us up from our hotel bright and early and whisked us away to the shop to store our luggage and sign in. Then we were taken to the docks where we were able to climb aboard! It was about a 3 hour cruise at first just to get out to the reef, and during that time we went through safety briefings and set up our equipment. We also had some time to enjoy the open sea view, and we got to see some dolphins playing about as well! 

We did two dives and a snorkel trip today. Both of our dives consisted mostly of doing skills since we are getting our certifications, but they both also had time to explore as well. We went down to a depth of about 10 meters today. On our first dive we got to hold and touch a sea cucumber which was really cool. I actually got stung on the hand by a small jelly fish. They were really small and clear, hard to see. I didn't even see the one that stung me but I saw others. It didn't hurt really, just startled me. Our second dive was in the same location and this time we got to see a handful of Dory fish from "Finding Nemo", and we also got to see a sting ray on the bottom!

Then we went to a new location and we got to do a snorkel. It was a great snorkel location with coral structures going almost all the way up to the surface level. There was a ton of life as well; corals, sea plants, fish, giant clams. I have some videos and pictures from the snorkel.

This evening we had to do a bit of paperwork for our certifications, but then we got to relax on the boat. We got to watch lots of big fish and several sharks swimming around the boat for awhile. And the stars are beautiful!

Day 2

Our first dive this morning was at 0730. We continued working on our skills. One of them is to completely remove you mask while at the bottom and then put it back on and clear it. We finished doing that and then swam about a bit and we found a sea turtle! It was amazing. I was sad I didn't have my camera with me. It swam about 3 feet directly below me. Then we also saw some "Nemo" fish (aka clown fish). That was really cool, but then unfortunately our dive got cut short because one of the girls couldn't control her buoyancy and went straight to the surface. 

Our second dive this morning we finished up doing some skills, since it was our last certification dive. We did some navigation skills and then completely removed/replaced our scuba while in the water. This was our deepest one so far; we got down to about 15 meters. This time I saw a giant clam.

After that dive we officially got our Open Water certifications! Yay!

Our third dive of the day was our first one as certified divers, and therefore we could just dive with our buddies instead of a group. This was much more enjoyable since you're not constantly bumping into one of the other 6 divers in your group and you can go where you please. They briefed us prior to the dive on where to go to see what. Jack and I had a great dive! First we saw some giant clams. Then we successfully navigated towards the "Mickey mouse" structure, where we saw the cave that a giant sea turtle lives (more about that later), and we got to swim through the narrow tunnel out. Then we swam north a bit and before we got to our second tunnel to swim through we saw a barracuda! It was really big and just staring at us, quite intimidating. I felt a little uncomfortable turning my back to it. But then we swam through the tunnel which was good fun. We started to swim towards the area known as the "fish bowl" but we noticed Jack was at the turning point level of air so we decided to head back. This is where our navigational skills broke down a bit. We way overshot the boat and eventually we had to surface to locate it again. Sounds like just about every other newly certified diver did the same so we didn't feel too bad. We located the ship and then descended a few meters and swam right back. On the way we saw two sea turtles! I have some videos and pictures from this dive but unfortunately my camera died early on straight after the clams, so I missed quite a bit.

video of sea turtles!

Our forth dive was our night dive. This was very exciting. Jack and I both decided to continue our education and get the Adventure certification while we're board so we switched instructors. The night dive was new and exciting, although we didn't get to see any sharks which I was disappointed about. The night before they had been everywhere. But we swam around a bit and pointed our torches (aka flashlights). We saw some interesting fish. And we went back to the turtle cave (they call the turtle Brian) and we saw him in there sleeping! Biggest turtle I've ever seen. They say he's over 150 years old and he's the dominant male turtle in the area. He was huge! That was definitely the highlight of the dive for me. 

Day 3

Our first dive of today was our deepest dive, and it was our "Deep Dive" for training. We went down to 29 meters, which is about 91 feet. Our instructor had brought down a squishy ball so we could see what the pressure did to the ball. It was amazing! It was all caved in. We also brought a color card and a torch so we could see what happens to the colors that deep. It was really cool to see how the reds/purples faded away. On this dive we spotted a sting ray and a flounder. A spangled-emperor kept hanging around us swimming right by our faces the entire dive. It was close to 2-foot long and about a foot tall. It was funny for awhile, but then it was like a fly that wouldn't bugger off.

Our next dive was our last dive for our Adventure certification and it was focused on navigation. We did a few navigational skills and then we were able to have a free dive. We saw some bump head parrotfish, a baby yellow box fish, a white-tip shark (!), and more clown fish. I was excited that we finally saw a shark while diving. I got so excited that I accidentally turned my camera off and couldn't get it turned back on to get a picture of it.

The third dive of the day was our last dive of the trip (sad face). This was a strictly fun dive so Jack and I were able to wander about on our own. This was at a great reef with so much life around. Everywhere we turned there were schools of fish. Some notable ones that we saw were bumphead parrotfish, anemonefish, and diagonal-banded sweetlips. We successfully navigated our way back to the boat with just a couple of minutes to spare in our max dive time.

Here's a video Jack took of the start of our last dive!

Then we all packed up our equipment and ate some lunch as we began our cruise back to Cairns. It was really a great trip and I feel really good about how many dives we got to do and that we got two certifications. I wasn't sure how either Jack or I would do with living aboard a boat- if we would get sea sick or just get a little crazy from not being able to see land. But we both did great! We never got seasick or anything, perhaps it was the Dramamine. I also thought that after 9 straight dives that we would be a bit sick of diving by now, but I think we both just want to do it more. Since most of our dives were training dives we only got 2 strictly fun dives and I think we could definitely use a couple more of those.

We got back to Cairns and met up with Matt at our hostel where we're staying tonight. It's called Mad Monkeys and it's brand new and very nice. It's very clean and everyone has their own locker. It has a pool with cabanas and a bar area under a huge tent that's lit with tiki torches at night. It's a cool place. And the best part- fast wifi! So Jack and I hopped in the pool for a bit and then took a proper shower. We cleaned up and went out to a nice dinner.

While we had been on a boat diving Matt went on a boat fishing and caught several large fish. He ended up keeping a Fingermark and a Barramundi, which the latter he gave to a nice restaurant to prepare for us tonight. So we all got to try Matt's fish and it was delicious. They prepared two courses for us; the first had some appetizers which included the fish fried up and also sashimi. It was surprisingly good! Then Matt and Jack each had part of a filet which I tried and that was really good too. So that was a nice treat for us to come back to!

Then we meandered back to the hostel and enjoyed the people-watching; it's Friday night of St. Patrick's day so the crowd is a bit rowdy. We're all tired and didn't feel much like participating in the festivities. Happy St. Patrick's day everyone!

I finally uploaded all of my photos from the last few days, including the photos from the Barefoot Tours the day before we left. A lot of the underwater videos don't work for some reason; I blame the cheap knockoff camera I bought. You get what you pay for I guess.

Here's just a couple of random pictures; there's many more in my album. I don't think I ended up with a picture of any of the sea turtles, or the shark, or the barracuda. :(

Pro Dive Cairns did sponsor part of our trip, but all opinions are my own.