Well, the Great Barrier Reef can now be checked off of our bucket lists and we couldn’t be more thrilled with our experience out in the deep blue.
For the past few days our schedule has been quite simple: eat, sleep, dive, repeat. Nesting ourselves on a liveaboard that anchored just off the reef, we started diving at 6am and then spaced out 3-4 more dives throughout the day. Let’s just say, by the end of each day, we had no trouble falling asleep (except Matt after swimming with sharks, check out the video below). On this trip, we ventured out solo on our first buddy dive. It went swimmingly and luckily Erin didn’t loose Matt 18m under (even though she might have considered feeding him to the sharks a few times).
We made great friends on our live aboard (hey Savanah and Craig!), who are doctors living in Newcastle that were there on holiday. We dove as a four-some a few times and luckily didn’t get too lost navigating the fingers of each reef.
Each dive brought about new fish, coral and animals that we haven’t seen before and it was truly breath taking. A big highlight of our experience was snorkeling with sharks at night, which needless to say, definitely got our heart rates up.
The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest reef system which is comprised of more than 2,900 individual reefs.
The Great Barrier Reef has over 900 islands stretching for over 2,600 kilometres.
Thirty species of whales, dolphins, and porpoises have been recorded in the Great Barrier Reef along with six species of sea turtles.
Check out a montage of our diving group. See if you can spot us with our turtle friends (:50) and if you can find a shark getting dangerously close to Matt during sharks in the dark (3:45).
Matt: Meeting our Australian friends and finding new fish
Erin: Sharks in the dark and swimming with turtles
Pacific Hotel in a little beach town, Cairns
4 dives a day and sharks in the dark
