Scuba Diving the Great Barrier Reef!!

Well this weekend was one of the most amazing adventures I think anyone could have. Kyra and I went to Cairns (pronounced Cans) and went scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef! I am not scuba certified so we did a introductory dive with a great company called Deep Sea Divers Den; they were such a great group of people.
To begin we took a flight up to Cairns from Brisbane domestic airport. The Brisbane airport was a bit different compared to DIA. First the public was able to go through security and either see people off at their gates or pick them up from the gates. I only remember doing that in Denver when I was little. Also, all the restaurants started closing down at 6:30pm! Crazy since we still needed to eat dinner and catch our flight. Unfortunately I had to eat Hungry Jacks which is pretty much Burger King, GROSS! Once on our flight it was pretty normal and we then arrived in Cairns at 11:30pm. Our hostel we stayed at was called Gilligan's. Not a great place for a sound sleep because they have a bar and night club attached to the hostel and everyone walking around past 10pm is drunk and very loud.
Waking up the next morning we headed off to the marina and got to see the cute town without lots of people out on the street.

Once at the marina I could see so many tour boats it was a little crazy. Our boat was called the Sea Quest and had a very nice sitting area inside the lower part of the boat. After we signed in and finished a ton of paper work we had to do a quick classroom session on the basics of scuba diving. We had to learn the hand signals and how to equalize our body pressure with the water pressure and all that jazz. We had two instructors doing the introductory dives, Simon and Dave, Kyra and I got Dave. 

DIVE 1:  We got into our wet suits and all the gear and made our way down to the dock on the back of the boat so that we could get into the water easy. That was fun and a little scary at the same time; then again so was breathing under water hahaha :) 

Before our first dive! 

Once we were in the water we had to swim over to the side of the boat where they had some ropes and a metal bar in the water for us so that we could slowly get used to breathing under water and do some exercises to make sure we could fix things farther down if we needed to. At this point Kyra and I were doing great! But one of the other girls in our group was having hard time not panicking under the water. She couldn't do the dive but her friend stayed with us for the dive. 

When down deeper it was the most incredible feeling! You are up close with all of these beautiful fish and creatures and actually breathing under water. We saw rainbow parrot fish, clown fish (nemo), white with black spotted ray and a large fish they named Wally (not sure what his really fish term name is). 

Kyra with Wally

Me with Wally, he felt so cool!

G'Day Mate!

We are pro under water model's 

(even with my awesome bangs that keep going up, haha)

After we got to meet Wally the photograph took us over to a little coral patch where we go to meet up with Finding Nemo's stars: CLOWN FISH! We also saw a small white with black dot sting ray, rainbow parrot fish and several other beautiful fish.

So beautiful!

Kyra and the clown fish

the ray 

Once we were done with our first dive of the day we went snorkeling for a bit and then went and did some sun bathing on the bow of the boat and looked out over the coral beds. It was amazing to see the coral tops and then you could almost see straight to the bottom, that's how clear the water was.

We had lunch on the boat while they moved us to the second location for the dives. But let me tell you something...getting into a wet wet suit is not an easy task and you should not do this with out an audience. We were getting ours on by the back of the boat so we could get in quick and all the guys were saying things like "come on you have to make it look good" and once you have it all the way on you are trying to do squats so it moves up a little more haha. 

DIVE 2: the second dive we didn't have to do the rope and slowly enter we did it a little bit faster this time but still holding onto a rope. At one point I did have a panic attack and had to get Dave (instructors) to help me. I was just having a hard time focusing on my breathing so he got me to calm down and take a few minutes to just breathe slowly and relax. That worked and I got to do the second dive. 

We swam over some huge coral formations this time and they were absolutely gorgeous! Dave picked up sea cucumber for us and we got to touch it; it felt like velvet :)

We also had larger fish following us this time and would swim about a foot in front of our faces. 

These photos were done by the professional scuba photographer 

but these fish we did see while diving.

Once back at the marina and saying good bye to everyone on the boat we went back to the hostel to shower and relax with a drink at their bar. Was nice to just sit for a while but then very soon we were off to dinner at a nice seafood place right on the bay. We then walked around town for a bit but headed back to the hostel soon since we were so tired. 

Next morning we woke up at 4:20am to catch our plane and came back to Brisbane.

If anyone has ever thought about scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef and you get a chance to do it, do not miss out on it! It was one of the most amazing experience I have had and will love thinking about. 

I want to get my scuba diving license now! :) 

And to quote Mark about what it's like to go scuba diving:  "it's like walking through a forest you've never seen before"