Thanking, for once, the joys of jetlag we arose at the crack of dawn and hauled ourselves outside to meet the ProDive van. We soon found ourselves among a group of 30 other customers, all staring vacantly into space between yawns. Luckily we were shocked out of our half-asleep state by arrival at the boat and the awaiting breakfast. While devouring some unsuspecting food we learnt we found be leaving a little late for the most unlikely of reasons – the fridge door had fallen off. We also learnt we could look forward to 20 knot winds, likely to rise over the next couple of days.
A new fridge and a bouncy couple of hours later we found ourselves at the first reef and got to experience to joys of diving in 24 degree water. The upside – we had 3mm short armed wetsuits, although the lack of a hood took a little getting used to. The downside – we had horrible full foot blade fins with left everyone’s feet feeling sore (and in some cases a bit bloody). Our first dive site was at a bombora (the little reefs behind the main reef) called ‘Mystery Bombie’. We soon discovered the mystery was that divers at 12m didn’t get to see a lot – all the interesting goodies were above 7m. And while there were lovely corals and lots of fish it wasn’t quite as crowded and colourful as everyone expected. Luckily lunch arrived to stem any disappointment before we embarked on our second dive on a nearby bombora. This time we took the camera and had a heap of fun trying to get below things to photograph them. This turns out to be quite hard in the case of rays.
We then moved to a reef out on the edge of the Barrier reef for dive’s three and four. This time things started to get a little more interesting and we found ourselves a couple of white tipped reef sharks. Unfortunately our photos of these aren’t too great as if you get anywhere near them they freak and make for the hills. Dive four was a night dive and somewhat disappointing – there wasn’t a huge amount about and the fins were taking their toll. But there was cake once back on board and we were tired enough that the 3 minute shower limit and the rocking of the boat didn’t even phase us – we slept like proverbial logs.
