In search of Nemo - Great Barrier Reef

Going to Australia, Queensland, where the Great Barrier Reef is, and not diving? Not an option!

After some consideration we opted for a 3 day / 2 night liveaboard with Pro Dive. That looked like pretty hardcore diving and the 11 dives in 3 days might be a bit too much for me, but this was the way to dive at the outer reefs. Financially it was quite a thing too (A$800/€500 per person) but hey... Once in a lifetime, right? 

That's what we looked like!

So, what did we do? We were picked up at 6:15am(!) at our hostel, checked in at the dive shop and then boarded our vessel in the marina. There were 32 divers on board, about halve of them in training, 4 instructors, 1 cook and 1 skipper. What we really liked is that this company does not send you down in groups with an instructor, but you go down independently as buddy pairs. That gives you so much more freedom.

Spot the spotted fish

We got breakfast on board while the crew loaded the stuff on board, and then headed out to the reef, where we arrived about 3,5 hours later and at 11:30am we had our first dive! But oh boy... What a current! This wasn't fun, is was about a 50m swim to the reef, but by the time we got there halve our air was gone! After 10 more minutes at the reef we surfaced and got a dingy ride back to the boat... Uhoh... After a reprimand from the dive master that we got way out off the area we went to the upper deck to catch our breath. And wonder if we really were that out of practice? But all the divers that surfaced had had the same problem, and lots of dingy rides that morning.  Turns out there had been some type of freak current (or so we were told at the next briefing). 

 

One of the anemone fish

The next dive at 14:30 was also at Flynt Reef, but this time on a reef closer to the to the boat: like swimming through an aquarium! Lovely colours and so many fish species. You could not avoid the parrot fish, and we spotted our first turtle! I just love turtles, especially when under water. They're every bit as surf dude as in the Nemo movie. We also spotted our first giant clams.

 

Like swimming through an aquarium 

We both skipped the 16:30 dive in favour of the night dive at 19:30. That was some serious underwater disco! Of course that's not very good for the wildlife spotting, but rather funny. We dove in groups as many of the divers had not done a night dive before. We did spot a parrot fish in a mucous bubble, that was rather special. And of course every small fish that you put a spotlight on was instant dinner for the bigger hunting fish. We also saw a flash of a reef shark. 

 

Look at that face...

The next morning we had a lay in, our first pre breakfast dive was at 7:30am. Unfortunately Rodie's night had not been very good. Our beds were 1.80m long, slightly on the short side for his 1.93m frame. Since they were 65cm wide and with 60cm headroom, he simply did not fit. The second night we put his mattress on the floor, left the door open and his feet slept in the hallway. Much to the amusement of our shipmates. 

The dive was at Tracy's little Bommie, a deeper dive to start the day with. This was a dive where we savoured all the smaller wonders of the corals and fish, and of course another turtle! We saw our first stingray and some more of the giant clams. 

 

Pretty amazing dives

For the second dive (at 10:30) we had moved to Milln reef and we decided to hire an underwater camera (thank you sponsors!). It was our first time ever and we had fun with it. And isn't it fun to see what we look like in the big blue? And of course it makes for a better blog post.  We met up with some turtles again, saw some anemone fish, angler fish, the ubiquitous parrot fish, so many fish I haven't got a clue what they're named. Rodie even made a some pretty cool videos of our dive!

The afternoon dive at 15:00 was similar to this, but without the camera. I skipped the night dive on their second day; simply not hardcore enough! Rodie did dive and saw one side of the sleeping Brian sticking out from underneath a rock. Who? Oh Brian, that's just the 2m turtle living there...

 

Tiny fish at one of the corals

The third day was again an early wake up call. The knock on the door was at 6am so we could be in the water at 6:30....  Who said this was vacation? We had a quickie briefing and changed into our gear in the black of the night, plunging in the water at dawn. That was quite special though, we saw the reef waking up. Slowly more and more fish emerged from their sleeping places. We also swam into a few reef sharks (black tips?) that just came back from their night's hunt, some turtles, (yes again, and I still love them!) and a badass barracuda. 

Parrotfish all around 

I decided to skip the second dive at 9:00 but Rodie went in and yes: he found Nemo's family! They lived in an anemone just a few meters from the boat. 6 cute little clown anemone fish. He also saw a moray eel, and some sharks. And of course those innumerable other fish.  For our last dive at 11:00 we were not assigned a specific itinerary at the briefing, so we first swam to the Nemos and that had a nice swim around, just to bid our goodbyes to the reef. At noon the boat headed for the shore again, and our diving trip was over!

Bye for now!