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Published: October 27th 2008
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Hi guys
Yesterday i was up early to get to the harbour for 7am because i was going to see the reef!!! The company I'd booked with was from what I'd heard the best one to go with i they lived up to that, we travelled for about an hour and a half to get to one of the outer reefs, the journey was rough in parts and i got a bit sea sick mainly after someone next to me was sick (domino effect) but i soon got my sea legs and i made it to the reef ok, to my surprise i was allowed to scuba dive!!!! I thought that without a Diving licence i wasn't allowed but apparently your allowed what they call an intro dive which is where you go down for around 20 mins with an instructor. It was absolutely fantastic!!!!!! I can't even begin to explain what i was like down there but i was speechless when i came back to the surface (makes a change), as i was with one of the first groups to dive i had enough time to snorkel around the reef as well and i saw loads of brightly coloured
Sea Turtle
The sea turtle i swam with fish, giant clams and a reef shark which aren't dangerous because they only eat very small fish but it was still quite unnerving, the water was crystal clear blue just like you see in films of tropical islands, after about 45 mins we headed off to a floating platoon where we moored up and had some lunch.
We then headed off to the next and final reef which was called Hastings reef, i only snorkeled on this reef because to do a second dive you had to pay extra but I'm glad because those that did the 2nd dive said they didn't see half the things that i did. I swam out a few times but on the 2nd or 3rd time i saw what I'd really been hoping to see............. A sea Turtle :-D it was so majestic in the way it swam it almost looked as if it were flying, i followed the turtle for a little while before it came to the surface to get some air and then dived really deep down beyond view, i carried on swimming around and saw Big yellow, black and white Angel fish, Giant Clams, Parrot fish and 1000's of
fish that i didn't recognise, the reef was teaming with life and the coral was in every colour imaginable. After a quick break back on the boat i went out one more time and swam around for a little while before spotting another Sea Turtle, i followed this one but it seemed to be a lot more friendly and i swam with it for about half an hour even getting close enough to stroke its shell and belly and i watched it catch and eat a jelly fish it was a moment that i will never forget and i think the high point of my travels so far, i left the turtle to carry on and started heading back to the boat, along the way i spotted a ray of some sort with bright electric blue spots along its back, just at the edge of the reef near the boat i spotted a fish a little way down so i decided to dive down and investigate and sure enough there was Nemo :-) it wasn't the same sort of clown fish you saw on the film it had a black stripe down near its tail fin, so i managed to
Coral
This coral was soft and squigy find Nemo just before getting back on board to head back to the harbour. I couldn't take photo's with my camera (obviously) so i brought a disposable waterproof camera but I've not had it developed yet but when i do I'll try to scan the pictures in and upload them, and sods law meant that i ran out of film before seeing the turtles but a lad i met on board said he'll email me some pics, Some people said that they were going to wait until they got further down south to somewhere like the whitsunday islands before seeing the reef but i can't imagine it being better than what i saw in Cairns.
Tomorrow I'm travelling south a little to a place called Mission Beach, I'm not sure what's there but past experience tells me that's not a bad thing, I'll try to update you on the place as soon as i can and as soon as i have news to tell.
All my love
Alex
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