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Published: September 12th 2009
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Oh man, Tuesday was so epic it'll be hard to get it all in one go.
We shot out of bed at 6:45am so excited for our dive we couldn't sleep. The bus picked us up at 7:30 and whisked us off to the docks to get us to our dive boat, the Silver Swift. Ho-ly crap. This thing was a frickin floating Hilton. As we started to take off toward the reef on a perfect sunny and windless morning, we had hot tea, focaccia sandwiches, and muffins as the dive masters briefed us on the three dives we were going to do that day.
We were so amazed by how beautiful the blue and green water was...so clear you could see fish! Jessa saw a dolphin off the side of the boat at one point, so cool! Erin missed it and was sad cause they're her fave.
Once the boat stopped we got suited up, defogged our masked and jumped in! The ocean in Australia is SO salty compared to the ocean we're used to (ok same ocean, different location) so we were like SUPER buoyant. Erin had 18 lbs of weights on and it was just
right to keep her neutral underwater, where in LA that would be waaaaaaay too much. Jessa had 12 lbs and it was just right.
Our first dive was at a place called Gordon's on Flynn Reef. We were like kids in a candy shop, so many colorful fish, craggy coral and marine life. Our tour guide kind of sucked though, there were two guides and the other one pointed loads of stuff and our pointed out nothing. We saw plenty though, like a huge Maui Wrasse fish and a Moray Eel. We were down for 40 mins at about 18m (60 feet) and didn't want to come up. Once we did though, we had enough time to slam some water, warm up with some tea and get right back into our gear.
The second spot was called Boulders and was also on Flynn Reef. Lots of coral rock formations and huge boulder shaped piles of coral made up this spot. TONS of fish, saw clown fish, giant clams, zebra fish, really cool. This dive was shallower than the last, so the water was warmer and the light was brighter. We took some videos so we'll upload them as
soon as we figure out how. This was another 40 min dive but covered more ground so we were swimming pretty hard the whole time.
After that dive we had a HUGE catered lunch. Scuba diving makes you quite dehydrated since you are breathing super dry compressed air and also makes you really hungry. We ate a giant plate of deliciousness then laid out on the back deck to warm up. Met some really fun Irish and English people back there and swapped dive stories.
The final dive was at a place called Stepping Stone on Tetford Reef. This was a giant reef shelf, pretty much a cliff. It was like diving in a reef valley, coolest thing we've ever done!!! One went down about 15m (50 feet) and visibility was great, like swimming in an aquarium. Schools of fish just swam around, you could get right up close to the fish in the coral and snap pics, watch them eating. Jessa saw a white tip reef shark and Erin missed it...hopefully there will be more the next dives. Only two crazy girls would actually WANT to see sharks on a dive!! This was by far the best
dive, we did not want to come up after seeing the brain coral, a grouper and schools of beautiful blue fish. Sadly we ended our dive when our tanks hit 50 bar and we climbed out and immediately scarfed down carrot cake and brownies...necessary.
The dive masters helped us fill out our dive logs and we hung out with our new friends on our hour ride back to Cairns. There were 3 of them from Ireland and one from England, so we all decided to walk into town and grab a pint before splitting up for dinner.
We went back to the hostel and did a quick change in order to make it to our hostel's bbq on time. We ate croc, kangaroo, emu and whitefish. We both agreed the emu tasted the best...looking back I'm pretty sure we were unintentionally using the "tastes like chicken" scale and the emu definitely tasted the most like it. The roo...aiii. It tasted a lot like chewy steak. Erin doesn't like steak, and they set her piece right on top of the fish, so hers tasted like gamey, fishy steak...gross!!! We learned how to play the digieridoo and hung out out
with a bunch of girls from all over the place including one from Ann Arbor, which supported Erin's theory of always being able to run into Michigan people.
After that we all went to the Woolshed to get a free drink and then we went to meet our dive boat friends at the Night Market. It's like a indoor stall market in Cairns. We got sucked into getting massages and all but one of us fell for getting these acupuncture patches which we found out smelled really strongly of curry and just about ripped off your skin when taking them off. This made for the best picture of the trip though.
We all went back and hung out at this cool spot called Rattle and Hum and talked about our plans, the Irish kids were going sky diving in the morning...brave. We were all exhausted from our dive so we went our separate ways sort of early and once back at the hostel, passed out and slept like babies. The perfect end to the best day ever!
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Mike
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Love the pics
Looks like a great day! Makes me want to go diving again. The water down under looks very clear. Thanks for doing a wonderful job blogging. It is great to keep up with your adventure. Dad