Great Barrier Reef

Two glorious days of diving completed (Day 1: Passions of Paradise Day 2: Down Under Dives) – 5 dives total on the Great Barrier Reef and it all ended with Francesco, our Italian/Australian divemaster saying, ‘You are great divers. And really good on air.’

Why would anyone be excited to be told they were ‘good on air?’ Well, while scuba diving it’s a bit of a competition to see who can use the least amount of air on a dive. The person who runs out of air first is responsible for the dive coming to an end. You never want to be ‘that guy.’ Dave quite impressively stayed pretty close to my air consumption. He was practicing his Zen breathing and frog kick and is quite chuffed with his ability to be 'good on air.'

We had a dive on our own today – on Hastings Reef. Took the waterproof camera (Thank you Margie!) and set off for a 40 minute dive without a guide. It was a blast! Found all sorts of things including a huge green sea turtle resting under a large coral. Admittedly, we did have to surface once to see exactly where we were since we became so enamored with the reef that we lost track of our location…then, we returned to our dive and surfaced the next time right near the boat. I had my ‘Safety Sausage’ ready in case we needed a rescue. Dave found my level of preparation a bit…should I say…surprising? He was obviously never a boy scout.

Water was warm enough to dive in swimsuits only. It will be hard to return to the frigid Monterey Bay! We tried to get photos developed for posting, but all photo shops were closed by the time we got back from the reef.

Here’s a partial list of our sightings:

• 3 sharks (the guide assured us they’re of the vegetarian variety)
• 5 different types of clown fish (known by most as ‘Nemos’)
• A Potato Cod fish that was at least a metre long
  
• Green Sea Turtles (Dave especially enjoyed the turtles)
  
• Wrasse (spotted, rainbow and more)
• Nudibranch – orange and grey with black spots
• Angelfish, Butterflyfish
• Sea Fans
• More sea cucumbers than one could ever need to see or touch – black velvet, pokey, not pokey – you get the idea
• Amazing coral – especially on our first dive today. Lots of colors, shapes and sizes. (Brain coral looks just as you would expect)