Trip with Mom & Dad: Day 12 - Great Barrier Reef

January 7, 2014

This is it! We are heading out to the Great Barrier Reef today and I am so excited. Brian and I have wanted to dive the GBR ever since we received our certifications in 2006. And now our dream is coming true!  BEWARE - there will be a lot of pictures in this post.

We had to be to the docks by 7:40am so we got up early and headed over.  Here we are checking in and ready to have a great time!

Weather report: hot and sunny. It's about time. I am so ready to bask in the sun.

Heading out to sea

Sadly, we had to get our diving instructions and gear sorted on the way out to the reef, so there wasn't much time for sun bathing and we got separated from Mom & Dad since they are not diving. But that's okay.  We still had some time to chat with them before our first dive.

Mom & Dad go Snorkeling

We'll start off with Mom & Dad.  Here are a few pictures of them getting suited up and ready to see some undersea creatures!

And they are ready to go!

What is the one most important thing our society needs?....WORLD PEACE! (Ashlee & Lisa - you better get this reference)

Ready to jump in

And Dad is first to take the plunge!

There goes Mom!

They are so cute together :)

Getting around - and taking pictures. They had an underwater camera but it wasn't digital, so I don't have their pictures. You'll just have to look at mine!

Heading in

Look how cute my Dad is helping my Mom!

I think they had fun!

Under the Sea - with Brian & Kristynn

While Mom & Dad were busy skimming the surface of the reef, Brian & I took a little dive under the sea!

Having fun getting ready

Looking back at the boat before the deep dive. Can you see Mom on the upper deck?

I am so glad that Tusa Dive had a digital underwater camera for me to rent. It was so much better than the disposable one I had purchased. I also got the pleasant surprise that the camera had video capability on it. Sadly, I forgot this on the first couple dives of the day, so most of the videos were at the third dive site which had worse visibility than the first two. But it's still awesome even if it's not super clear!

Here are a couple videos as we start off...I don't think Brian knew he was videoing in this first one, so there is a little gap in the middle where he puts the camera down. But hopefully all of you who have never tried scuba before will see just how easy it is!

[We are having a little technical difficulty with our crappy internet over here. I will replace with the video when I can actually get it to upload.]

This next video is short, but probably my favorite. We found Nemo! I'm not sure if I should have known better, but I was certainly surprised to see the two little Clown Anemonefish peeking out of their anemone and then backing in, repeated several times, in order to assess the safety of their surroundings. I thought they just made that up for the movie to make it funny.

(Nemo Video)

And here our some pictures from our dives!

We just had to buy the picture proving we were here!

Me and a pink anemonefish. We saw her cousin, Nemo at a different dive site.

Ok, so the picture above was taken by a professional photographer, which was nice so I could be in the picture, but my own wasn't too bad, considering I had no zoom capabilities!

I have no idea what this thing was - but our dive guide let us touch it. It was actually quit soft like a sponge. Crazy!

Surrounded by hundreds of fish...

Everything is OK!

The best part of our day was that we had so much fun together. As usual, we had to strike a few poses...

And suddenly our day was over! After three amazing dives, I climbed out of the water one last time...

I think I was trying to smile under all that gear LOL!

The Journey Home

On the way home from our outing, we were all a little tired, but none more than Mom. Dad forgot to take it easy and they swam around the entire reef at the second dive site. Soooo, Mom had a little mini seizure and had to lie down and get warmed up.  Poor Mom!

We were all pretty tired on the way back and were glad we could rest a bit.

Did I wear more than one outfit on this cruise? You bet I did!

We saw so many beautiful types and varieties of fish and coral that you would be here all day if I posted them all. So I have limited it to some of my favorites. And luckily we got quite a few pics with pretty good water clarity. There were points where it was quite murky (as you could tell in the videos).

Look at All the Fish!

Cool, Colorful Coral

So if you made it to the end, congratulations! We took more than 300 photos on the day so be glad I didn't post every single one! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did :)