Scuba Dive the Great Barrier Reef....check.

Oh man, life is good!  I just got back from being on a boat overnight without seeing land in the Pacific Ocean over the Great Barrier Reef. 

I was with a group of about 10 other divers/snorkelers, and I did a total of 7 dives, one of which was a night dive. 

Chris wasn't feeling well enough to dive, so he didn't make the trip.  As it turns out, instead he went 4-wheeling with an American tour guide named Randy through the Hinterland, a.k.a. mountains with forest on them in Cairns as I was suiting up to dive.  

When I listened to our first briefing on the ship, I thought I would need a guide for all 7 dives.  I was nervous.  The first dive in, nearly everyone used the guide to get acquainted with our surroundings.  We saw some gorgeous coral, and we even saw a shark!  It nearly bit my nose off!  Haha, just kidding.  The shark was probably 5 meters away.  As it turns out, I only used a divemaster twice.  Don't worry, when you dive you have to have a buddy, so I wasn't completely alone roaming around the deep blue sea.  At first, I was buddies with a girl from Spain named Rocio.  She was really cool, and our dive was her first time to go without a guide too.  The visibility was about 15 meters, so it was nearly impossible to lose each other.  It was a blast, and we saw some incredible fish and coral!    

After that dive, we transferred to the boat we slept on.  Rocio was my roommate in our tiny room with 2 twin beds a bathroom. 

The communal areas of the ship were quite nice, and the food was delicious and healthy!



Once we got onto that ship and changed locations, Rocio decided to complete an advanced diving course while on this trip.  From then on, she was doing separate coursework so I became the third in a buddy pair of 2 Israeli guys - Jonathan and Yuval.  They were awesome.  We went  as a buddy team of 3 without a divemaster every dive from then on except for the night dive.  This is a photo of team international - a 70 year old Japanese man named Tadayoshi who got his scuba certification when he was 63, Jonathan, me, and Yuval.

The first dive with Jonathan and Yuval was a bit rough because we weren't warned of the strong current before getting into the water.  We went under and swam around in the deep blue water seeing nothing but each other for about 5-7 minutes.  We decided to surface to get our bearings, and as it turns out the current had been pushing us toward New Zealand, away from the ship.  We could still see the ship, but decided to go back underwater to avoid the waves at the surface and try and find our way toward the coral again.  This is one of the maps we got briefed on before our dive at the Playground of Norman Reef. 

After surfacing a bit closer to the ship one more time before seeing any coral or fish, we were tired and frustrated.  We finally made our way to a bit of coral, but by the time we got there, we were almost out of air and had to find our way back.  Even still, once we surfaced at the end of the dive, the smaller motor boat was on its way to give us a lift back to the ship.  We were underwater looking at cool stuff for about 15 minutes, but we were in the water for 2 hours total.  I hope that's the worst dive I ever have.  

After that, the dives got progressively better.  The night dive was pretty awesome.  We each had a torch (flashlight), and we all went with a guide.  At the front and back of the ship near the lights, there were lots of gray reef sharks and other fish swimming near the surface.  You better believe we were in the mix on our dive.  I'll admit, I was nervous and my breathing was shallower than it should have been, but what an experience!  At one point, a gray reef shark about 3 ft long was 2 ft. away from me.  It was similar to what I would imagine diving in an aquarium would be like. 

This morning, we got our wakeup call at 5:45 and we were diving again by 6:30.  After that, we had breakfast and then went down for two more dives before lunch.  The last dive was one of my favorites.  The ship supervisor took us out on the small motor boat and dropped us off right on top of a nice, shallow portion of the reef since the current was so strong.  We rolled off the boat backwards into the water.  I did a back flip underwater while breathing in all of my scuba gear.  What a cool sensation.  Jonathan, Yuval, and I saw more fish than we had on any of our dives before.  We also stayed underwater for a longer period of time since we were staying in fairly shallow water (~10-12 meters).  The only downfall was that I got cut by some coral.  I was swimming backwards watching a fish and my left calf got scraped up on some fire coral.  I came out of the salty ocean water bleeding and the dive supervisor got me all fixed up.  Thankfully the great whites weren't on to me.  

The visibility for our last 5 dives was only 5-10 meters.  Typically on the reef, visibility is about 30 meters.  As far as this time of year goes though, I picked a good week to dive.  Right now Cairns is between two cyclones.  One was last week, the next one is expected to hit as early as tomorrow.  Usually the difference between tides in this area is ~20cm.  Right now, the difference between tides is over 2 meters because of the weather.  This makes the currents stronger and the water murkier.  This water was significantly clearer than the rock quarry water I got scuba certified in, but when I come back to the reef next time, I’ll avoid the rainy season in the tropical north of Australia to get the better views. 

Now we’re hoping our flight to Bali tomorrow is still on schedule due to the volcanic ash over the islands at the moment.  Fingers crossed and lots of prayers that the Southeastern Asia leg of the trip goes smoothly!