Her Thoughts on the Live Aboard

Well, we are back on dry land and I must say I had no idea what I was getting myself into on this one. In my head I saw myself lounging on a sun deck with a strawberry smoothie in my hand only to be interrupted with an occasional leisurely dive. In fact there were no smoothies and, sadly, minimal lounging. Yes, the focus of this 50 km jaunt into the Pacific Ocean was strictly diving. The three days went something like this, up at the crack of dawn, dive briefing, dive, breakfast, dive briefing, dive, lunch, dive briefing, dive, afternoon tea, dive briefing, dive, etc. As a novice diver, I can say it was definitely the experience of a lifetime but not, I repeat not, relaxing. Diving that many times (I went on 8 day dives) also put a serious strain on my sinuses. Toward the end, I was having some trouble equalizing, causing some pain in my ears. Our last dive was yesterday at around noon and I am still so congested that I can barely hear. Plus, although it is warm here - around 80 - the water was a chilly 75. Even with a wetsuit on this was a tad unconfortable- especially at 6 am.

Congestion and lack of smoothies aside, the Great Barrier Reef is AMAZING! In a three day span, we saw a manta ray, two sharks (one of which was large and quite scary causing me to suck down way too much air in a matter of minutes), dwarf minke whales (about 7 meters in length), sting rays, and heaps (as they say in Australia) of beautiful fish and coral. My favorite though were the green turtles, especially when they were swimming to the surface or munching on some breakfast. So beautiful and graceful! They made me feel so awkward, with all my hoses and equipment.

Most of the dives were unguided, which meant that Alan was my compass. He did great. We only had to be towed in twice (once due to admittedly bad directions by the dive master and once due to an unexpected current). The second tow ended up being one of the most memorable moments of the trip for me. As we were bobbing in the ocean, being picked up in a dinghy by our dive master, she yelled to us "behind you, behind you!" At her command, we stuck our masks under the water to see - you are not going to believe this - a minke whale! We only saw it for a short period and we later learned from Tanya that while we were waiting it actually surfaced within 2 meters of us. It gives me butterflies to even think about it now. After we got on the main boat three minkes began to circle and surface around the boat for about 20 minutes. It was definitely awesome.

The people on the trip were great too. There were about 30 of us plus about 8 hilarious crewmembers. Most of the people on the trip were single and a bit younger than us, mid twenties, and were from everywhere- Sweden, New Zealand, France, Germany, US, Australia. Above is a picture of us with the boat's dive master, Tanya. We met the crew out for a few drinks last night in Cairns after we got back which was fun. The captain, Fozzie, was especially funny. He is a former Marlin fishman who cussed like a sailor.

As for spending three days on the ocean, I thankfully did not get sick. We had great, calm weather, so that helped. In fact, I feel more sick now that I am back on dry land. I have what Tanya told us was sealegs, where I feel unsteady all the time (kind of like I can't get used to not rocking). I am hoping this will pass soon. -- Kelly