Day 1 - Great Barrier Reef

--
I think I'm going to enjoy this cruise quite a lot.

The boat is really good, friendly crew and if we avoid the strong winds I think I can even avoid the seasick medication. :-)

The boat:

So far I´ve managed to meet just a few of the guests, there is a Brazilian couple, a guy from the UK, two american couples and a soldier on leave from Afganistan. I believe she´s going back to Afganistan after the cruise...

I had the chance to talk to the dive organiser here and I obviously asked about the sharks. O:-) I must admit he was quite reassuring and apparently there are not great white sharks in this area...just smaller sharks only!!?? 1-2 meters long and very rarely some tiger sharks... what was reassuring to me was the little fact that he still had all his limbs. :-) that´s a good sign, isn´t it?

It seems I´ve been really lucky. It transpired in the briefing that they´ve had no choice but to cancel last week cruise due to the famous cyclon they had here last week. That's the cruise I was meant to take, then in order to get cheaper flights we decided to postpone it for the one this week, and according to the capitan it was the first time in 20 years they had to cancel a cruise. This week won´t be perfect and we´ll have to choose the diving spots based on the weather conditions, it seems the cyclon is still around and although we are quite far from it, it seems to still manage to make its presence felt around here. There are some quite strong winds.

The Brazilian couple are both from Sao Paulo and believe it or not they brought all their diving gear all the way from Brazil!

It seems I am twice lucky since we are only half of the people we could possibly have on the boat so I have a room for myself as everybody else does. There is even a spare room with in-suit bathroom. :-)


First day diving
----------------

As always when is the first time you go diving in a while (in my case it´s been slightly over a year since my last dive) you get a bit aprehensive about it trying to remember everything, the signs, checking the BCD, regulator, getting your weights right, maintaining your buoyancy etc, etc... I just kept watching how much air I had left in the tank every 5 minutes, and I spent most of my time focusing on getting my buoyancy right and not going up and down all the time and by the time I came out of the water I was mentally exhausted of being so concentrated about everything... nonetheless today I saw my first shark! :-) it was quite far, I saw it from the distance and it probably wasn´t more than a meter long...but it was a shark nonetheless, my first one. :-)

Gettting ready:

There is quite a strong wind which generates good waves so on the surface you need to hold onto something or next thing you know the tide is pulling you away and you´re 50 meters away in a few seconds and underwater there are quite strong currents as well you find one of those and good luck mate nice meeting you! that´s why we were adviced to stick to the coral and never go any further because with strong currents like this you may get yourself in trouble in no time. There are 5 dives a day including a night dive...the days I do air I don't think I'll do more than 2 or 3 otherwise I may end up going to bed at 6 pm... but the days I go with Nitrox I'll try and do the 5 scheduled dives...I don't think I'll ever get to have a better opurtunity to explore a magnificent coral reef like this one.

The boat is moving quite a lot left to right, up and down...it seems my seasick medication is working like a treat. :-) Although I must admit this morning at breakfast I wasn't sure I would make it, the boat was moving (trying to reach our destination) and the waves were making the boat bounce quite a lot, but you'll be all glad to know I've managed to keep my breakfast in. :-) It was bouncing so much that I even found it weird that I wasn't seasick...wonderfull pills! :-), fortunately when we reached our destination the bouncing subsided considerably.

The second dive was better, I felt much more confident and didn´t need to watch my air consumption every so often nor did I need to re-adjust my buoyancy every 2 minutes. I got to see fewer fish than on the first dive but we went all around a coral reef and then over it, the current wasn't as strong as on the first dive so it was much more relaxing.


The third dive of the day was THE BEST one and it was also my first NIGHT DIVE, it was a fantastic experience, we all got to dive using torches. During the day you get to see all the little colourfull fish but at night is predator's time and it´s when all the bigger fish come out and we got to see lots of them...there was also a large shark lurking around apparently but I was the only one who didn't get to see it. I suppose sometimes being the blind of the group is a blesssing. :-) Specially in the dark. I can only imagine what would have been navigating in complete darkness, pointing my torch up front and finding a large shark just in front of me...

I found Nemo!

--