Great Barrier Reef- Day 2

Our second day in Port Douglas we spent out on the Great Barrier Reef, scuba diving. When you dive you accumulate carbon in your blood stream and cannot fly with in 24 hours of diving. This left Saturday as our diving day and we were going rain or shine. We went out with a boat company called Calypso and they took us out by Opal reef. The weather was beautiful and I saw a dolphin on our way out to the reef!

We did 4 dives that day (tiring but worth it right?)

The first dive we did is only done 5 times a year if the visibility is right. It is called Cathedral cove and you get to dive down into a reef that has grown into an underwater cathedral. We saw a sea turtle and quite a few HUGE fish (half my body size)! We also got to hold a lot of things which my instructor kept picking up, which I thought was pretty cool. I was too afraid to touch anything...everything in Australia can kill you!

Entering the cove...

Cathedral cove was just barely over 18 meters/ (60 feet) deep, which is too deep for me since I am only open water diving certified, advanced is the next level--up to 25 meters. The instructors said we would keep it top secret and go anyway. I was trilled, it was beautiful, but after the dive, when I went up top I FORGOT to decompress just under the surface for 1 minute. I got a minor case of decompression sickness--I had the most horrible pain in my joints and felt very nauseous :( I was fine for the remaining 3 dives as they were all only 15 meters-ish, but now I really take this stuff seriously, because it was awful!

the reef

Happy Birthday Stan!

A giant sea cucumber (usually these guys are about the size of my finger at the aussie aquarium petting zoos)

Giant sea clam

I was so excited to scuba dive The Great Barrier Reef! I felt a huge urgency to do this after the oil spill off of New Zealand while we were there two weeks prior. So many things are happening, earth quakes, tsunami's, war etc.... I just don't know how much longer these things will be around at the rate we are going and I don't want to miss any of it!