Turtles, Sharks, and Nemos on the Liver Aboard!

June 28, 2010 - Might as well take advantage of having Internet, so here goes another update! Olivia and I were excited and anxious for our first liveaboard trip, yet still tired and sleepy from the early morning departure. After arriving at the dive shop for check in it was off to the Scubapro II, which will be our home for the next 3 days.

It was 6:30am as we began our 3 hour journey through rough seas to reach our reef destination of Milln Reef. The itinerary read a little something like this...dive, eat, dive, eat, dive, sleep, repeat. Yup, 11 dives in 3 days including our first 2 night dives...EEK! The first day's dives were more of the same - cool coral, but nothing pelagic or macro to feast our eyes on.

Then comes the night dive... Olivia was much more anxious about jumping into the pitch black water than I was and I could tell she was apprehensive to say the least. It wasn't the best start to the dive either...as soon as we jumped in Olivia loses her torch (flashlight) and her snorkel. Not to panic though, our dive master has a spare light, which she hands to Olivia.  All is good (although again, nothing to see except a sleeping turtle) and in 30 minutes, the dive is over.

Day 2 - Our day starts with a 7am dive...yup more of the same, cool coral and Nemos (clown fish), then it happened...our first shark sighting! It was on our way back from dive #2 of the day and there it was, a fully grown white tip reef shark, about 6 foot long. I dive down to get a nice video of it and swim with it for a good 2 minutes (I'll post on youtube and link it here when I can). Highlight of the trip for me. The rest of the day went similar to the rest...sharks, turtles and nemos!

Day 3 - 6 am start, and to be honest, the most boring of all the days diving. Olivia and I come to realize that we have been spoiled by diving in the Caribbean. The Great Barrier Reef is great for viewing coral, but as for big marine life...nope, gotta go out much further than where we were. We finish up our last dive by noon and are back to the dock by 4:30pm. I have to say that the best part of the trip (besides me chasing a shark) were the people on board. Olivia and I met some very good people on the boat that we hope to continue to keep in contact with as we travel through Australia and beyond. Thanks to the lost divers Robert & Paul; our Canadian friends John & Christine; and our dive buddies Jacky and Ryan for making our trip to memorable and fun!

Well, that's it for Cairns and our diving adventures. Next up, the Top end of Australia - Darwin, Kakadu, Litchfield and more! Stay tuned!