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We got up a little earlier this morning at 6am so we could finish packing our bags and go down for breakfast straight away. The food was already laid out when we got there but the moody lady wouldn't let us eat until the right time! She's obviously not a morning person! So we might as well of stayed in bed for an extra fifteen minutes!
After breakfast we got a taxi down to the marina, there was no way we were gonna walk there this time with our heavy bags on our backs! We found the Reef Experience day boat and got on. It was a really nice boat with lots of day trippers on it. We headed upstairs and found a seat. Chris made us both a cup of tea then we were offered a bacon and egg roll each, we were still stuffed from our breakfast in the hotel but we couldn't resist an egg and bacon bap!
An hour and a half later we made it to the Great Barrier Reef, it was beautiful! The sun lit up the reef which stretched for miles in both directions! It looked so nice from above the water we couldn't wait to see how amazing it would look from underneath. Suddenly the staff called us to transfer over to the Reef Encounter dive boat where we would stay tonight. We grabbed our things and climbed into a glass bottom boat and made our way over. The waves were a little choppy so we all got splashed a bit, we didn't care though, the water felt warm.
All the dive and boat crew were waiting for us and the other guests as we arrived. They greeted us and made us feel very welcome, I liked the feeling of being a guest, I hope they will be just as nice when we are working as their b****es! The team leader took us into the open lounge and restaurant area for a briefing. The insides were a dark polished brown and the carpets were royal blue to match the restaurant chairs. There were a couple of big leather sofas and a plasma tv in the seating area and a book shelf full of books about the reef. Once our briefing was over we were shown to our cabins by the hosties. Two of them picked up our heavy bags and carried them all the way up the very narrow stairs. Luckily for us we got upgraded to a twin room instead of a multi shared room. It had two comfy beds and a dressing table, plus an ensuite. I liked it because the decor was pink! We had a quick chat with the hosties before going back down to the lounge. They were backpackers too and said they really enjoyed working on board, we were pleased when they said the work is so easy that it doesn't feel like work at all!
Before I could ask Chris to take a wonder with me around the rest of the boat, he was already nestled in one of the sofas drinking a cup of tea reading the paper! Sometimes he reminds me of an old man! I told him to get up and explore the rest of the boat with me! He moaned for a second then got up, not without his tea though lol. At the back of the boat was a jacuzzi! We will defiantly be using that tonight! We had a quick peak in the kitchen, there was music playing and we could see the hosties cleaning up and the chef preparing lunch for later. Suddenly the team leader announced 10:30am snorkelling trip, we had our first dive at 1:30pm so we gave it a miss and chilled out for the morning.
Lunch was at 12, it was so nice! We watched as all the hosties ran around making sure everything went to plan, keeping note on what we will have to do when it's our turn from tomorrow.
Before we knew it, it was time to dive. Our first dive location was at Hastings Reef. We got ready and jumped into the water. It was the first time ever diving without a guide. The crew wanted to charge us an extra $10 each if we wanted one! That pissed Chris off, it meant we would be paying another $120 on top of what we have already paid if we wanted a guide on each of our six dives! It's the first place Chris has seen it happen. To be honest we knew what we were doing so didn't need anyone to go with us, it's just the dive crew know where to find all the good stuff so hopefully we won't miss out.
We were down for forty minutes, it was a good dive, lots of colourful coral and large fish. We didn't see any sharks or turtles though, which we would have really liked to see. The wind had picked up while we were down so it was cold getting out of the wet suit. We both literally ran to our room afterwards to dry off properly and get changed! It wasn't any warmer in there though, the air con must have been set to freezing! I wanted to sit in the sun so Chris got a cup of tea and met me on the sun deck. I think the sun deck was my favourite place. It was very quiet and had plenty of funky looking beds to lay on. Our next dive was at 3:30pm so we didn't have long to relax. The boat began to move to the next dive location, Saxon Reef. I liked the feeling of being rocked while laying in my sun bed, Chris got bored after a while so went back downstairs for more tea and to chill out on the leather sofas!
A little while later and we had arrived. The team leader called everyone down to get ready for the dive. It was horrible putting our wet wet suits back on! The wind was blowing even stronger now and it wasn't warm! I thought it would be warm once we were in the sea but it was actually quite chilly! It took a few seconds to acclimatise then we began our decent. This time Nina and one of the hosties joined us and it was a really good dive! Chris spotted a huge flat fish in the sand which was a first for all of us! Then we saw a lion fish, two sting rays, barracuda, a blue cuttle fish and a massive turtle. The turtle was the best, it was just sitting there in the sand chilling out. We got right up next to the turtle and it didn't seem to care. Then Nina kept trying to feed him hard coral and eventually he got fed up and swam off. We both thought she would have known they don't eat hard coral and that it takes months and sometimes years for coral to grow only a few inches! It was still cool to see it glide off into the distance though.
On our way back Chris checked the hostie girls air, she was only on fifty bar! Both of us had seen Nina (her buddy) checking her air so we don't know why she allowed it to go so low. Chris turned to me and Nina and signalled to go up. On our three minute safety stop a big school of fish swam around us which was cool. When we got to the surface the girl only had ten bar left of air, bloody idiot. I'd hate to think of what would have happened if Chris hadn't checked the girls air! We didn't say anything to Nina as she was going to be our boss from tomorrow.
Back on the boat we decided to hang up our wet suits this time to see if they would dry a bit better before our night dive this evening. We were both shaking and like before we ran to our cabin to have a hot shower and warm up.
Dinner was at 6pm and it was even better than lunch! We had a selection of three meals, we both chose the rack of lamb, it was amazing! We could definitely get used to this, it was a nice break from tuna salads and chunky soups! Chris ended up having two dinners, the second one was Moroccan chicken and was so scrummylicious, as he put it.
We finished our dinner then got ready for our night dive straight away which was at 7pm. It was the first night dive we have done where you enter the water when it's completely dark. Normally you go down the line as the sun is setting so it's light when you enter and gradually gets darker.
Our wet suits hadn't really dried off at all so it was horrible putting them back on. It was really windy and the temperature had dropped a little bit. We jumped in and were amazed straight away! We were still on Saxon Reef but it was very different in the dark. There were loads of giant travelli's swimming around us! They were using our torch lights to hunt fish, they were just under a meter big and a foot high. We saw one eat a pretty little angel fish, it was the same as the yellow striped one from the film Finding Nemo. Chris grabbed me to tell me at the same time as the travelli eating the fish and scared the s*** out of me! I thought a fish was biting me! After that it became a cruel game. We kept our lights on fish sleeping or hiding under rocks and coral until a giant travelli ate them. We watched three get eaten, well actually we killed them. We also saw three to four small one meter black tip reef sharks swimming about, their eyes lit up green when we shone the torch into them. Then to finish it off we saw a lion fish and massive turtle sleeping under some rocks. That was really cool, our first sleeping turtle. They hold their breath while sleeping and swim up towards the light in the morning when they wake to take a breath at the surface. We had to be careful not to shine our light in his face and wake him up otherwise he could get confused, panic and swim towards the light, take a breath and drown. If the turtle did wake up then we would have to shine our torch lights up to the surface, so they would swim up and take a breath. None of us wanted the guilt of killing a turtle so we all made sure we kept our light away.
It was so horrible getting out of the sea after our dive. Some people didn't even bother to dive because they can't stand how cold it is after but they don't know what they are missing! We jumped straight into the hot tub to warm up. It was so nice looking up at the stars. We thought it would be full but we were the only ones in there! We stayed in for a few minutes then got back out in time for dessert. We were knackered so didn't bother staying up late, we were in bed by 9:30pm.
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