...Reef Sharks

Day 7:

GREAT (Barrier Reef) Day! This was what I had been waiting for all trip. A chance to swim among the largest living organism on the planet! Unfortunately, the weather wasn't the best. We woke up to gray skies and a bit of drizzle. But it wasn't a big deal; we boarded our huge Ocean Spirit cruise vessel anyway and got underway.

The water was pretty rough and a lot of people got sea-sick on our two hour ride out to the Coral Sea. Thankfully, I did fine and as soon as we got to our destination I was ready for some snorkling. Even though the sun wasn't out my visibility underwater was unreal! The coral was beautiful, so many different colors: electric blue, vivid organes, red and purples. Just absolutely beautiful!

After about half an hour I was forced to come in (I could have stayed out there all day exploring and swimming among the Nemos and other exotic fishies), but lunch was being served on the boat. And I wouldn't have missed that lunch for the world! Seemed like the crew had gone out while we were snorkling and fished for our lunch...we had a delicious fresh sea food buffet!

Then, after lunch, it was finally time for my scuba diving debut! On the ride out to the reef we had been given a crash course on diving techniques. Since we didn't have our liscense we were permitted to do a short dive down to 3 meters, accompanied by an instructor.

And oh man, the instructor was so attractive! Jacques Cousteau himself, but hotter. Anyway...

The instructors helped us strap into our tanks and then we plunged into the water off the back of the boat. We had been told to make our way to the side of the boat where two metal bars had been attached, one at surface level, the other 3 meters below the surface. While our dive coach, a Japanese woman, guided us over to the first bar she told us in broken English: "When you go down, you see small fishy...they nice fishies, they like you, don't be afraid." No worries, I thought, I came here to see fishies!

Once we were all settled, holding on to the surface level bar, our coach started guiding us down a rope to the second bar below the surface, one by one, to make sure we had the breathing down and were able to adjust our ears to the pressure. I had no problems but a girl in my group was having difficulties with her ears. So while the coach spent some extra time trying to sort her out I was just chillin, holding on to that lower bar, observing my surroundings...not much to see yet, just clear blue water.

Oh except for those 'small, nice fishies'...

Yea, they were not fishies. Mate, those were reef sharks. Baby reef sharks, but sharks all the same. She may have lied about the species, but she hadn't lied about their affection for us: they swam in and out of our legs, in front of our masks... but they were harmless.

Finally, we all got underway and began actually scuba diving! It was amazing! We saw sting ray, lots of exotic fish, stuck our hand in a clam. Everything was so beautiful!

Unfortunately we were only allowed to stay under for a 30 minute dive which passed by way to quickly. But hey, I did it!

After my group got back from diving it was time to head back to the mainland. We had to prepare for that night's event: a group pub crawl. OH BOY.

It was a great night! A party bus, the same one that took us bungy jumping, picked us up and carted us to our various destinations that night. Met some great people, had some great laughs!