Since arriving in Germany, we've been to Dresden and Bad Karlshafen - more on these places in later posts.
Before leaving Australia, we went up to Queensland where we got in a day of diving on the Great Barrier Reef off Cairns. It's our second visit to dive here, and to be honest, I don't think that we're big-boat divers.
The boats that go out to the reef typically carry between 80-100 people with a mix of snorkellers and divers. It's a well set up operation and everything is taken care of by the competent crew, but they do play it safe by visiting the same places day after day. Those poor dive masters must get really bored from swimming around the same coral bommies! Plus, the competency of some of our fellow divers leaves us bemused. 20 minutes into our second dive, one of our party indicated that he only had 50 bars of air left in his tank, (we still had about 180 bars left), so our whole dive was aborted so that he could be taken back to the boat.
We got in 3 dives and saw some interesting stuff, but nothing that had us raving as per the Musandam or Maldives. I think that we've been spoiled by diving in some great areas of the world!
Spine-cheeked Anemone fish
Feeding Blue Spotted Ray
Pretty Purple Hard Coral
Funny little things - I've never bothered to find out what they're called!
Green plant life amongst hard red coral
Feeding Hawksbill Turtle breaking off chunks of coral
The inside of a clam shell
J finning around a bommie
A friendly Napolean Wrasse who swam with us for the entire first dive, keeping us together as if playing tour guide and divemaster!
A tiny Nudibranch - about 8cm long
Pink Anemone fish
A sleeping Green Turtle. I don't know who would have gotten the bigger fright if he had woken up - me or him, as I was only about 50cm away!If we ever go back to the Great Barrier reef to dive, we'll only consider a live-aboard dive boat that takes smaller groups and goes out for 3-4 days at a time, and to places where the big day-boats don't go.