Tommy & Rhonda's Travels

Great Barrier Reef

AUSTRALIA | Wednesday, 7 November 2007 | Views [237]

We awoke about 7am to have breakfast at the hotel, get packed up for our trip to the reef and wait for our ride from the dive company. They picked us up, checked us in and off to the boat and the reef it was! We had some safety briefings and stuff on the ride out and then it was time to dive about when we got out there. Rhonda was most comfortable with a guided dive (extra $15) and so was I since it was my first ocean experience. The dive was amazing; we saw lots of great fish but nothing crazy yet. After the first dive we had some lunch, then did our second dive on the same boat we rode out to the reef, Reef Quest. After our 2^nd guided dive, it was time to hang out for just a bit and then transfer to Ocean Quest where we would dive some more and then spend the night out of the reef. We got over to the new boat, got the briefing and got some terrible (really pissed me off) news. We were told the boat goes in for fuel once every 3 months and this was the time. All of their promotion and literature says the boat is errantly out on the reef. Total garbage. So, instead of spending the night out there, we spent the night traveling back into Cairns, refueling and back to the dive sites just in time for the morning dive. I will say we did 2 dives before heading in…Rhonda had a mask problem on the afternoon one so she bailed out. It was the best dive of the day as far as fish and stuff but the visibility wasn’t quite as good as it had been. After a shower and dinner, it was time for the night dive. I was really pumped about this, Rhonda not so much so she sat it out. It was a really cool experience. Not as scary as I thought it would be but I didn’t see as much stuff as I thought we would. I did see a huge lobster that was the highlight. It was really, really cool to see the nocturnal ocean creatures moving at night and to shine your torch on a lobster and see it so clearly was really cool. After another shower and some apple crisp with ice cream, we were exhausted and in bed by 9pm.

Tags: Adventures