Wandering the World: turtle

Wednesday, 18 July 2012

Great Barrier Reef Day 2

July 13 – Great Barrier Reef Day 2

Beau and I made an executive decision to forgo the 6am dive. We are allowed 4 dives a day and with 5 opportunities this seemed like the best one to skip. Breakfast was quite the feast with pancakes, hashbrowns, sausages, beans and tomatoes. The boat moved dive locations and we were now on 360deg Coral Garden but still on Briggs Reef. We really had only moved about 500m. We had a dive brief before jumping in the water for our 8am dive. We descended right off the back of the boat but by the time we hit 19m we still couldn't see anything and were pretty disoriented. We didn't want to swim out into the great blue yonder so we surfaced then snorkeled till we could see the bottom then descended again. We had a nice dive and saw tons of fish but by the time we had surfaced we were a bit of a ways from the boat and most likely back at Fish Bowl. Once back on the boat we had a short break then went in again for our 11am dive. This time we snorkeled to the front of the boat and descended. We were joined by another diver whose buddy was having trouble with her ears so the 3 of us stuck together. This dive was awesome we petted a turtle saw a puffer fish and a mantaray! We got super lucky with the mantaray we had started swimming in the opposite direction when we heard a metallic tapping. We turned around and one of the guides was behind us trying to get our attention to point out the mantaray. It was super cool. After our exciting dive we had lunch and then a big break till our next dive. Beau went for a nap and I read up on deck. There ended up being 4 mantarays around the boat at one point and I ran down to get my camera waking Beau up in the processes. I got some surface pictures then turned to Beau and commented that we had seen turtles, whales, sharks and rays the only this we are missing is dolphins. Next this we knew someone was yelling there were dolphins off the back of the boat! Pretty awesome! A bunch of people, including Beau, hopped in the water since the mantarays were still around. Those of us on the boat were yelling at the people and directing them to the rays. Beau got some shots of a ray before it left him in the dust. Then we were back in the water for our 4pm dive. This dive had lots of fish again and was really nice too. We tried not to pig out on dinner again but it was hard since it was fish and chips. Not really a light meal before a night dive. We went on our dive unguided this time and it was super good. Right at the begining we saw a purple and yellow cuttle fish and we got pretty close before it jetted off into the night. There were red bass around again but we still couldn't get them to eat a fish. We also some white tipped reef sharks and a sleeping turtle with his head under some coral. We were heading back towards the boat when Beau starting flashing his light over one spot. For the life of me I couldn't figure out what he was trying to show me until I saw some glowing green eyes (sharks eyes are green in the dark). It was a wobbogong shark, they are super camouflaged and are pretty flat too. You could easily miss him if not for his glowing green eyes. Back on the boat we had a quick shower before falling into bed.

Yellowtail Fusilier

Moorish Idol

Titan Trigger fish

Bat Fish

Mantaray

Mantaray, from the boat

Tuesday, 17 July 2012

The Great Barrier Reef Day 1

July 12 – The Great Barrier Reef Day 1

We were up very early this morning and had Hungry Jacks for brekky. We parked in an area that was pointed out to us as free parking and walked the short block down to Cairns Dive Center. We got checked in, filled out safety paper work then were loaded in a mini bus and driven down to the dock. We boarded Reefkist, the day boat the would be taking us out to the liveaboard, Kangaroo Explorer. We boated out to the reef with a stop at Fitzroy Island. We also stopped for a bit of whale watching along the way and saw a couple of whales breaching. It was awesome they were actually jumping out of the water. We made it out the reef and transferred over to Kangaroo Explorer. We went through the welcome brief then got a tour of the boat before being assigned our cabins. Compared to the last boat we were on these cabins were luxurious. Actually compared to the van it was spacious too. We had some yummy lunch then got ready for our first dive. The first dive was with a guide so they could assess our skills. We went in at East Timor on Moores Reef with Tanya the Dive Master. She is very energetic. We got to hold sea cucumbers, Tanya loves sea cucumbers, and touch some giant clams. I went through my air fairly quickly though. I'm not sure if I just was cold, excited, nervous or what. Previously Beau would go through air faster than me but then again I'm not sure if we really had equal amounts in our tanks. They were also smaller tanks so the air doesn't last as long either. Anyways it was still a good dive. We then moved dive sites to the Fish Bowl at Briggs Reef. Beau and I had our first unguided dive and really enjoyed it. We saw several sea turtles, one only had three legs! A few more giant clams and tons of fish. We also decided to rent a dive camera and attempted to take lots of photos. After that dive we had a break and some dinner before our very first night dive! Since it was our first night dive we had to hire a guide. There were 6 of us in our group plus the guide and it felt crowded. I guess we have been spoilt in the past since we usually have 4 or less in a group. We did see a bunch of white tip reef sharks as well as a sleeping turtle and some red bass. The red bass use the torch lights to help them hunt but we didn't get to see them in action. After our night dive we had a shower then were pretty much too pooped to do anything else so we went to bed.