Early rise, off we go, diving and snorkelling the southern great barrier reef. Emmanuelle and Estelle start out disappointed as the boat leaving next to us is much more luxurious (air co, male AND female toilets and a bar). We have an old diving boat that's slower, without air co and definitely does not have a bar (that pisses me off as well).
We arrive at the barrier reef and spot straight away 3 giant Mantas. That gets everyone's attention, and as the ocean is a perfect flat mirror no-one can resist getting in the water right now! I chose to go diving, Emmanuelle and Estelle prefer to go snorkelling. Imagine this: perfect blue waters, not a hint of wind, mirror flat seas, fish everywhere, a couple of islands in the distance and no noise but the 20 people or so on the boat. Not a bad place to be.
The first dive was okay. We saw what we expected to see on the reef, lots of fish some coral and some sharks.
The second dive is led by an amateur, we get lost in some labyrinth of coral and we get beached... truly beached. We have to crawl over the coral to get back to the deep water. Bhahaha, my new found Israelian friend laughs it out in disbelief.
I propose to my new mate to go together for the third dive, just him and me and try to get to the outer reef. He's been in the Israelian army for 4 years and calls me sergeant and says: 'you lead, I follow... okay?'... 'Okay!' I answer.
So here we go, the diving instructor just told me not to go beyond 14m as this is the 3rd dive and I answer 'sure buddy'. We dive straight to 20 meters and speed off to the outer reef, as fast as we can. We see many, many fish, a really rather large and intimidating gray shark, the biggest shovel nose shark I've ever seen aaaannnddd... Mantas!!! It took a while for my Israelian soldier to recover from the excitement: 'Sarge', he says, 'this was my best dive ever! thanks! these guys on the boat suck, you rock. Thanks!' Being quite pleased with myself I answer, 'at ease soldier'.
By the end of the day we got the following list: the biggest shovel-nose shark I ever saw, a leopard shark, a hand full of manta rays, a couple of huge sting rays (about 2,5 meters across), tuna, gray shark, white tip shark. Emmanuelle and Estelle saw more while snorkelling than I did while diving; they got the giant stingies and the leopard and some of the mantas.
Estelle and Emmanuelle are really, really happy they took this boat and not the touristy one.
What a splendid day. What a fantastic place. The southern Islands of the Great Barrier Reef are truly something to see before you die.
Lesson: don't take the luxurious, touristy one, take the local one.
We arrive at the barrier reef and spot straight away 3 giant Mantas. That gets everyone's attention, and as the ocean is a perfect flat mirror no-one can resist getting in the water right now! I chose to go diving, Emmanuelle and Estelle prefer to go snorkelling. Imagine this: perfect blue waters, not a hint of wind, mirror flat seas, fish everywhere, a couple of islands in the distance and no noise but the 20 people or so on the boat. Not a bad place to be.
The first dive was okay. We saw what we expected to see on the reef, lots of fish some coral and some sharks.
The second dive is led by an amateur, we get lost in some labyrinth of coral and we get beached... truly beached. We have to crawl over the coral to get back to the deep water. Bhahaha, my new found Israelian friend laughs it out in disbelief.
I propose to my new mate to go together for the third dive, just him and me and try to get to the outer reef. He's been in the Israelian army for 4 years and calls me sergeant and says: 'you lead, I follow... okay?'... 'Okay!' I answer.
So here we go, the diving instructor just told me not to go beyond 14m as this is the 3rd dive and I answer 'sure buddy'. We dive straight to 20 meters and speed off to the outer reef, as fast as we can. We see many, many fish, a really rather large and intimidating gray shark, the biggest shovel nose shark I've ever seen aaaannnddd... Mantas!!! It took a while for my Israelian soldier to recover from the excitement: 'Sarge', he says, 'this was my best dive ever! thanks! these guys on the boat suck, you rock. Thanks!' Being quite pleased with myself I answer, 'at ease soldier'.
By the end of the day we got the following list: the biggest shovel-nose shark I ever saw, a leopard shark, a hand full of manta rays, a couple of huge sting rays (about 2,5 meters across), tuna, gray shark, white tip shark. Emmanuelle and Estelle saw more while snorkelling than I did while diving; they got the giant stingies and the leopard and some of the mantas.
Estelle and Emmanuelle are really, really happy they took this boat and not the touristy one.
What a splendid day. What a fantastic place. The southern Islands of the Great Barrier Reef are truly something to see before you die.
Lesson: don't take the luxurious, touristy one, take the local one.
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