We arrived in Cairns early morning and immediately realised that this area was much more tropical and humid than the other places we had previously visited. After exploring the city we booked our boat to dive the Great Barrier Reef for the following day and went back to our hotel. The rest of the day we could only chill out in the pool, as the temperature was reaching about 40 degrees!

The next day was our dive day on the Great Barrier Reef. We had an early start as it was a 90 minute journey to our first dive site. Jack split off with the other beginners as he had never dived before. I on the other hand had already got my open water diving qualification, thus allowing me to go deeper and for longer. The first dive was the deepest, and it was on this dive that i found a clown fish which i appropriately named Nemo! The reef was pretty spectacular, however, it was very obvious that the vast amount of tourism was damaging the delicate ecosystem. After ascending it was only a short 20 minute break before my second dive. The second dive was by far the best. Whilst down there the dive leader asked me to check my oxygen, i did so but as i looked up he was pointing behind me. I turned around to see a giant turtle swimming a few metres away from me! Amazed i decided that i would follow it, i ended up being one foot away from it face to face, eye to eye.. f***ing awesome! This was probably one of the highlights of the trip for me so far.