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The Great Barrier Reef - Cairns
Entry 18 of 43 | show all | print this entry |
Just got back from 5 days out on the Great Barrier Reef. I knew this was one of the things I really wasnted to do on my world trip, one on the top five list, I mean I mainly went to Thailand so I could get my dive qualifications to dive here.
It was all I expected and more, I mean there is a reason people say it's one of the best places in the world to dive, and that's just because there is soo much to see out there. The coral is so brightly colored and covers the rocks everywhere, there are tons of fish from multicolored parrot fish to little damsels to nemo's. There are sharks, turtles, cod, rays, eels; well it was just fantastic!
I went out on a boat called Reef Encounter, where I paid to stay as a guest for the frist two days and then I got to stay on as a 'hostie' which meant I helped clean rooms, serve dinner and wash up in return for free meals and board and free diving. I wanted to stay another day longer but the hostie program was getting popular and I had to come back to let someone else have a chance.
The first dive I was a bit nervous, not having dived for a month and this time there were no instructor's to babysit me so I paid for a guide, just to make sure I didn't get lost and also so there wasa professional about if anything went wrong. It was a good dive, we saw nemo fish and there were tons of small fish of every size and shape about. Then in the afternoon I buddied up with the girl I was sharing my room with, Maya, and we teamed up with an American couple called Ally and Mike and we went on our first unguided dive. It was totally awesome as we could go where we wanted and take our time to stop and look at anything that caught our eyes. And we even made it back to the boat (believe me it's hard to navigate underwater when you only have jaggered bits of rock to go by). I came up feeling a propper diver for the first time, it was totally awesome! Then that evening I did a night dive (guided this time just so we could get back to the boat!) and we got to see turtles sleeping under the coral - they looked so sweet just perched there for the night. It was strange as well as we were constantly circled by these large dark blue fish, nicknamed GTfish, that used our torch lights to hunt as they have bad night vision. You'd shine your torch on a little fish and 2 seconds later a GT would swoop in and gobble in up, unfortunately I did kill a couple of fish this way... But it can't be helped.
The next day I dove a couple of times in the morning and then after lunch I became a 'hostie'. This meant in return for me working by cleaning rooms, serving meals and washing up I got to dive for free.
Got to go will update more later!
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