So in addition to reviewing my trip on the Spirit of Freedom (read that post here), I will also be using this space to chronicle some of my other adventures diving in Australia.  Halfway through the semester some friends and I did a weekend  dive trip with Remote Area Dive to the Palm Islands.  The group was Alex, Kevin, Charlie, Jared, and me.  Andrew had to drop out because of lack of funds, and Steve was actually in the hospital for three days after getting bit by a spider so he couldn’t go either.  Still, we had a good group and enough people to get a sweet discount.  Alex, Kevin, and Charlie were even able to get their Advanced Open Water Certification for only 50 bucks.  Not bad.

The short version of the trip report is that it was a ton of fun.  We did six dives over two days (including a night dive), and camped on one of the islands at night.  The coral at the Palm Islands was like nowhere else I had ever seen on the Great Barrier Reef.  It wasn’t that the coral cover was outstanding (it was pretty good), but the diversity and different types of coral on the reefs was really cool.  We were seeing coral and things that I didn’t even know what they were.  It’s amazing how different the reefs can be even within one reef system like the Great Barrier Reef.  Highlights of the dives were tons of nudibranchs, basket stars, thousands of jellyfish, an octopus, lobsters, a “bug”, a whitetip reef shark, a scrawled filefish (one of my favourite fish), a juvenile boxfish, a sea turtle, a couple juvenile lionfish, a wobbegong, and A GIANT CUTTLEFISH!!!  I had been dying to see one of those since I’d been in Australia and finally we spotted one.  Jared and I made a good buddy team pointing stuff out to each other, and we both had the best dives we’ve ever done in terms of breath control and conserving air.  We even lasted a full 60 minutes on one dive, which is the longest bottom time I’ve ever had.  Anyway read on for more info on the dives and some sweet pictures.

Dive #1 – 10/10/09

Site: Bat Caves, Pelorus Island, Great Barrier Reef

Time: 11:00 am to 11:40 am (40 minutes)

Depth: 15.7 meters

Visibility: 20 meters

Water Temp: 24 C

Equipment: 3 mm full suit w/ barefoot fins, GEO computer, 13 lbs weight, 200 bar to 110 bar dive

Notes: The first dive of the Remote Area Dive Dive/Camp Safari to the Palm Islands with Alex, Staples, Charlie, and Jared.  The other three were doing their Advanced Open Water Certification so Jared and I buddied up.  Since it was the first dive we were led in a group with a few other guys who were members of the RAD dive club.  They spent about 30 seconds making sure we could do a regular recovery and mask clear then we were off exploring.  Jared and I had talked about how we both go through air pretty fast so one of our goals of the weekend was to try to work on improving the efficiency of our air consumption.  The dive was a very good first dive for the trip.  I was amazed at the diversity of the coral; there were so many things I didn’t recognize.  I couldn’t believe how distinct different areas of the Great Barrier Reef could be in terms of the coral composition.  People at the dive shop kept telling me that is something I would notice on this trip, but I just kind of dismissed them because I didn’t really know what they were talking about.  Right away on this dive I figured out exactly what they meant.  Other hilights of the dive were Christmas tree worms, basket stars, and giant clams as well as tons of reef fish.

Dive #2 – 10/10/09

Site: SCUBA School, Pelorus Island, Great Barrier Reef

Time: (SI 1 hr 1 min) 12:42 pm to 1:42 pm (60 minutes)

Depth: 16.1 meters

Visibility: 20 meters

Water Temp: 23 C

Equipment: 3 mm full suit w/ barefoot fins, GEO computer, 13 lbs weight, 210 bar to 90 bar dive

Notes:  After we moved sites it was time for our second dive.  I had snorkelled for about 25 minutes before the dive to get oriented with the site while the guys doing the course went over some knowledge reviews.  Didn’t see too much that was noteworthy except that there were literally thousands of small jellyfish in the water.  It was crazy.  Jared and I decided to go off on our own on this dive because some of the other guys were doing some skills.  Prior to the dive when we were getting a briefing on the site Craig the skipper (and owner of the shop) mentioned something about going to an area of the site to check out “Rocky Balboa”.  When we asked what it was he told us not to worry about it, and that we’ll know when we see it.  We explained that we needed to know what it was in order to find it, but his only response was “Don’t worry, he’ll find you”.  We set off on the dive, and I immediately forgot about Craig’s confusing briefing because I couldn’t believe the coral at the site.  It was easily the most impressive coral reef I had seen up to this point.  The dive was a good for microfauna, as there were tons of colourful nudibranchs, jellyfish, and huge sea cucumbers.

About halfway through the dive I turned my head to notice a fish right in my face, only a few inches from my mask.  I swatted at it and didn’t think much of it but a few seconds later it was there again.  I stopped to see what was going on and then we realized that Rocky Balboa had found us.  Rocky Balboa was a little fish about 6 inches long that for some reason was incredibly aggressive towards divers.  I guess he had some sort of territory in that area, but his behaviour was hilarious.  We sat there for about 5 minutes as this little fish all by himself continually charged and backed away from us trying to scare us away.  He didn’t leave us alone until we left the area, but even found us again later in the dive after we had looped back and repeated his performance again.  Its pretty crazy that he approaches divers so frequently that the local divers all know him.  Jared and I had a great dive, and even extended it to a full hour, the longest dive either of us had ever had.  We did get yelled at by Craig for it, but it was worth it and we were pleased our air consumption was improving.

Dive #3 – 10/10/09

Site: AJ’s Rock, Pelorus Island, Great Barrier Reef

Time: (SI 2 hours, 44 min) 4:27 pm to 5:10 pm (43 minutes)

Depth: 9.3 meters

Visibility: 20 meters

Water Temp: 24 C

Equipment: 3 mm full suit w/ barefoot fins, GEO computer, 13 lbs weight, 210 bar to 110 bar dive

Notes:  After going back to camp for a barbecue lunch and to refill tanks, we headed back out to our third site of the day.  The site consisted of two large main bommies, so we spent most of the dive working our way around and between these.  The coral was great once again, and we saw a lot of nudibranchs as well as a lobster.  I also found an octopus that slid back into its hole as soon as I saw it.  It was still partly visible while it was hiding in the hole so Jared was able to get a look at it too.  After the dive I snorkelled for a bit while we waited for our night dive and saw a big ray as well as a whitetip.

Dive #3 – 10/10/09

Site: AJ’s Rock, Pelorus Island, Great Barrier Reef

Time: (SI 1 hour, 21 min) 6:33 pm to 7:02 pm (29 minutes)

Depth: 10.1 meters

Visibility: 1-3 meters

Water Temp: 23 C

Equipment: 3 mm full suit w/ barefoot fins, GEO computer, 10 lbs weight, 200 bar to 130 bar dive, torch

Notes:  Our night dive was in the same site as the previous dive.  This was only the second night dive I had ever done so I was very excited, and the experience turned out to be very different than my night dive at Wheeler with the JCU dive club.  On that dive there was a full moon as well as floodlights on the boat, so our visibility in the water was extended to between 5 and 10 meters.  As a result, we saw at least a dozen sharks circling us on the edge of the darkness.  On this dive we didn’t have either of those sources of light, so it was basically pitch black in the water besides our torches.  With the small torch beam we were probably able to see 2-3 meters, however outside of the beam we could only see about a meter in front of us.  It was a pretty eerie feeling because we really couldn’t see anything at all.  For the dive we all went together in a huge group led by the instructor Wayne, so everybody was a bit jumbled together because we couldn’t really see where each other were.  We did see some really cool stuff though including a lot of lobsters, crabs, cleaner shrimp, and cardinal fish.  We even saw a “bug” which I didn’t even know existed prior to seeing it.  Basically a lobster without claws or antennae, so it pretty much looked like an alien.  Really cool.  I also found a sleeping scrawled filefish, which is one of my favourite fish so I was pretty proud of that.

Dive #5 – 11/10/09

Site: Hurt Locker, Orpheus Island, Great Barrier Reef

Time: (SI 14 hours, 53 min) 9:56 am to 10:46 am (50 minutes)

Depth: 13.9 meters

Visibility: 15 meters

Water Temp: 23 C

Equipment: 3 mm full suit w/ barefoot fins, GEO computer, 10 lbs weight, 200 bar to 100 bar dive

Notes:  After a night camping on the island we headed over to Orpheus for a few more dives.  The coral and visibility on Orpheus weren’t as impressive as at Pelorus, but I enjoyed the dives because there was a lot more animal life to see on the Orpheus dives.  The first dive of the morning Jared and I went off on our own on an out and back dive along a reef crest.  We managed to somehow finish up somewhat near the boat, which I was impressed with.  Jared somehow managed to find a Wobbegong shark hidden way back in a crevice.  He had no idea what it was but just recognized that it was something big because its tail was slightly visible.  I took my snorkel off and poked it a bit (keeping in mind Wobbegongs are the only shark that can bite their own tail) and it turned around facing out of the crevice towards us.  I tried to signal to Jared once it was facing us, but it turned around as soon as he came over so he never got a good look.  We also saw some huge fan corals on the dive, as well as a juvenile boxfish and more nudibranchs.  The highlight of the trip came when Jared spotted a giant cuttlefish.  I was taking a picture of something when Jared grabbed me and pointed to it no more than 2 meters away from me.  I would have swam right past it had he not seen it.  I had been waiting the entire time I was in Australia to see one, so I was pretty excited when it hung around just floating there and watching us for a bit.  Whenever we got close it would change its colour from camouflaged to plain white and back away to maintain a distance of about two meters.  Finally when I chased it and it zoomed away, basically disappearing out of the field of vision.  Just as cool as I hoped they would be.

Dive #6 – 11/10/09

Site: Megan’s Wall, Orpheus Island, Great Barrier Reef

Time: (SI 1 hour, 5 min) 11:52 am to 12:33 pm (41 minutes)

Depth: 13.1 meters

Visibility: 10 meters

Water Temp: 23 C

Equipment: 3 mm full suit w/ barefoot fins, GEO computer, 10 lbs weight, 200 bar to 110 bar dive

Notes:  The last dive of the trip was a drift dive led by one of the crew, Wonka.  The dive was a good finale for the trip, as we saw a lot of fish life.  Highlights include lobsters, a few juvenile lionfish (or turkeyfish according to Alex), red banded cleaner shrimp, nudibranchs, a juvenile boxfish, and a large puffer towards the end of the dive.  At one point after Wonka had asked us all how much air we had left I turned around to see a medium sized green turtle about 10 meters to the left of the group.  Everybody else had already continued forward with the dive and so didn’t notice it.  I tried to get everyone’s attention, but no luck, so I snapped a few photos and then caught up with the group.  After the dive we packed everything up for the trip back to school, with a stop at the Frosty Mango on the way home.  I really enjoy diving with people I know, so it was fun to organize a trip with a bunch of buddies and have it work out real well.