Great Barrier Reef

Sunday we, yet again, woke up early to get on our bus to go to the harbor. We boarded the Reef Experience boat to go out to the Great Barrier Reef and scuba dive. The reef was about two hours from shore so the crew talked to us about what kinds of animals we would see at the Reef and different precautions to be aware of. I signed up with a small group of certified divers and went through some of the hand signals and what our game plan was going to be. Everyone else either could snorkel or have an introductory dive. My group suited up and started our decent into the ocean. The Reef was gorgeous; between the fish and the coral the colors were amazing. Within the first couple of minutes we saw a shark which was a cool start to the dive. I saw many large clams, fish, small jelly fish (it’s the time of year in Australia where all these jelly fish wash up by the beaches but the small ones aren’t too venomous and we wear a wet suit so it was fine), sea cucumbers, and much more. There was an adorable turtle above me going to the surface to get air. We stayed down for about 45 minutes but then one of the girls in the group was running low on air so we started back towards the boat. 

After a lunch and nap break the boat went to another area of the reef where we could go out again if we wanted too. I decided to go out again with one of the guys that were in my original group for the first dive because if you were a certified diver you could go out alone and do your own thing. We both didn’t want to go out alone so decided to stick with each other. We saw two sea turtles and ended up chasing after one of them because he had a camera and wanted to get a good shot of it. I went through my air much faster this time; I think it was because of the chase and me being nervous about being without a guide. The second dive was only 30 minutes and we went to a depth of 19.6 meters. I saw a lot and had a blast so overall it was a successful day. On the way back to the harbor one of the crew members (who happened to be from South Dakota) taught us some fun facts about sharks to make the time past faster. Some facts: Sharks loose 30,000 to 40,000 teeth in their life time, and that their skin is really a combination of teeth and skin which makes it feel like sandpaper and potentially cut someone’s hand. It was a fun but very tiring day so we all came back to Gilligan’s and napped before a fun night out.