To continue to play catch-up: here are tales of warm weather and diving in the Great Barrier Reef! Oh, and a special sharky video, as requested by Bill, at the end of the post.

Arriving in on the East Coast of Australia – Cairns specifically, is like arriving in the Florida Keys.  The entire town is built around the sun and tourism and the top order of the day is snorkeling and diving.  For me I was definitely interested in booking myself onto a multi-day live-aboard ASAP – and with dive shops and travel agents on every corner there were multitudes of opportunities for me to blow through some money.  I was actually a bit overzealous when I sat down with the travel agent…with just three weeks left of my time in Australia I booked four separate tours and a greyhound ticket down the coast back to Sydney – I basically gave the agent free reign to arrange my remaining weeks.

She did a great job arranging the dive boat – I was excited to learn that one of the top diving  companies in town was making a trip out to its live-aboard boat the reef the very next morning.  Not one to waste time, I was well rested and up waiting for the boat at 7:15 am the next day.  My dive trip was just one night on the reef but a total of seven dives – this included a night dive…not too shabby and a really good value.

A small boat ferries new divers to the main boat which stays stationed on the outer reef.  On the two hour trip out there I found my dive partner, Bruno.  He lives in San Francisco, working for Macintosh but originally hails from France.  Seeing as this was my first dive trip after receiving my PADI certification six months ago, I was really glad to go under with a seasoned diver!

Before each dive the dive master on the boat gave us a rundown on the layout of the dive site, ocean currents, and recommended paths to explore.  I managed some spectacular day dives but I really loved the underwater night dive.  I think part of the fun of the night dive is the adrenaline rush you get from knowing that a shark could swim within a couple of meters of you…and you might never know it. Even with the adrenaline though, it was just a bit freaky and I was glad to have a guide as we used our flashlights to shine under the coral and find sleeping fish.  Our dive guide pointed out what he later noted was one of the biggest parrot fish he had ever seen – it was perched for the night at about 14 meters below and under a huge piece of coral…too beautiful.

Another fun moment on the night dive – we were warned not to use our flashlight as a spotlight as we were diving.  If you focus the flashlight beam on a small fish a larger fish (which has been following you unbeknown to you) comes from under you and dispatches the small fish in a matter of seconds – you literally have God-like powers under there and our guides begged us not to get carried away and execute a little fishy massacre.

As for the dive sites – our second second dive site was, by far, the best of the trip. Just like in Finding Nemo, the dive site boasted a huge drop-off (it’s pretty common on the outer reef edge).  Or, more pointedly, a huge wall of coral that extended downwards as far as the eye could see.  And if the wall of coral was to your back – it was an impenetrable wall of blue ocean.  I missed the turtle sightings on the first day of diving and was thrilled to see Mr. Turtle cruise by and around us for several minutes.  We also spotted several White-tip Reef Sharks – these pretty harmless guys were  hovering near the bottom until we approached and disturbed them – they only took minor offense though and cruised off at a clipped pace.

Though I am sure that I could have enjoyed another day of diving on the reef, I was pretty exhausted and completely satisfied with the couple of days I had on this beautiful World Heritage Listed site.