Dive, eat, dive, eat, dive, sleep, dive, eat, dive, eat, etc, etc,etc

As we are both lucky enough to be occasional (and qualified) divers, an organised trip to the Great Barrier Reef was almost a compulsary part of the trip to Queensland. We booked a 3 day, 2 night "live aboard" trip with Pro dive ltd from Cairns. The boat had space for 32 guests, and we had a small twin room with a window on the pacific. Leaving cairns very early, the boat ("ScubaPro") made its way to the outer reef, approx 50kms offshore.

Its difficult to do justice to the marine life on the reefs that visited. During the three days, we saw everything from Clownfish ("Nemo"), to numerous Turtles (Brian - the biggest was almost 2 metres long, and is believed to be at least 100 years old), and even white tipped sharks and grey Reef sharks. Needless to say the coral was fascinating as well, with most of the reef appearing to have virtunally no rock showing as it is all covered in coral. There is much discussion about the state of the reefs, but to my untrained eye they looked to be mostly in good shape, at least on the outer reefs we visited.

At this point I should point out that I took all these photos (apart from the one I'm in...) and that an experience underwater photographer with a less cranky (rented) camera would have got far better shots. The photos were all taken on just one of the eleven dives, which was probably the WORST visibility we experienced (hard to believe but true).

Ursh living the dream!

The night dives were an amazing experience. Few people on the boat had done a dive before, and the wind ups about huge sharks, conger eels and so on did little to settle the nerves. We dived with the instructor on the first night, and saw amazing lobsters and countless other night time fish. All the time we were down, there were a pair of grey reef sharks constantly circling in the water away from us. There appearance was quite mezmerizing, and they were apparently about 2m ish long (completely harmless to people) but seemed much bigger with no sense of scale or distance available. Their eyes light up in torch light just like cats in a headlight, so they are easy to keep track of. We also saw Brian the turtle asleep before he got rudely woken by a torch in the face (not us - promise). He looked very dazed (they lower their heart rate at night time to conserve energy and air) and almost bumped into Ursh who was rapidly getting out of the way.

The second night dive we did on our own, and although we saw less, it was great to be in the pacific looking after ourselves and feeling confident enough to do it.

Huge Clam - at least 1.5m long

Although one of the cheaper boat trips available, we ate like kings for three days. The justification was partly that diving that much uses a lot of energy, but also that the food was simply there so regularly, with big breakfast, lunch and dinner the norm, supplemented by snacks of hand made cakes between dives. The crew were great as well, very experienced and friendly, and even though it is a bit of conveyor belt business, everyone felt welcome and made friends on the boat.

Didnt get a photo of Nemo, but this one looks similar!