Cairns,
Australia
Saturday, May 31, 2008
We're just back from our 6 day diving liveaboard on the Undersea Explorer !! It was really great. It was really full on. 4dives per day, with nature talks in between, and really good food! I've done 20 dives now. I got to do night dives, deep dives and live drop offs for the first time. We got to snorkel with Minke Whales, which was really cool. We all jumped into the sea, and held onto a rope while the Minke Whales came up to have a look at us and swam under us. We also did a shark attraction dive. We all dived, and then sat in a circle, while someone brought down a cage full of tuna heads. Lots of sharks came over to look for food, including White Tip, Silver Tip and Grey Whalers. The sharks are really shy, and you cant usually get close to them. We also got to take part in Nautilus Research. Nautilus are big snail like creatures with tenticles at the front. They've been around since the dinasoar age. Unfortunetly, they are being fished for their shells, and the population is declining, as with sharks. We set traps for them at night, and then numbered and measured them the next day, before releasing them the next night on a night dive.
We've just picked up our campervan, and are about to head off travelling down the east coast of OZ. We both feel a bit worse for wear today, as we went out with people we met on the boat last night, and had to get up at 7am this morning. I was really sea sick on the boat, so I was looking forward to being on land again, but it feels like Im still on the boat !
