DeepDiverBob
March 23rd, 2007, 09:24 AM
Let me first say this was definitly a trip of a life time. This was also my first live a board trip, but it will not be my last. I have a hard time seeing myself doing many more trips that arent liveaboard style. Eat sleep and dive, who could ask for anything else? Ok, on to the trip details.
We met at around 4:30AM at the St.louis airport, and departed around 6Am for Houston. The trip was off to a shaky start, due to the fact that when we reported to the airport, it was snowing quite hard. After a quick de-icing on the runway, we was off. After a 2 hour flight, we started our approach into Houston. Looking out my window, I could see us getting closer and closer to the ground, then the runway appeared below us. But to my surprise, I heard the engines fire up, and we lifted back into the sky again. The captain came on and said our approach was too fast, and we had to circle around and try it again. You could see the look on everyones face as we came in for a second time. Luckily, no more problems, and we landed safely. The rest of the trip was pretty much eneventful. Left Houston, stoped in Honolulu to refuel, then off to Guam, and then Cairns Australia.
We arrived in Cairns early Monday morning, it was still dark, and I was still half asleep, so I am not sure about the exact time. It was still dark though. We was taken to the hotel, where I took a nap for a few hours. Around 11:30 or so, we was taken by bus to the port where we boared the Spirit of Freedom.
After a quick briefing on boat procedures, and staff introduction, we was off to the Great Barrier reef. After a quick lunch, we was at dive site number 1, which was called Troppos. I wasnt expecting much, since this was the first dive site of the trip. I figured it was going to be a thrashed out area where all first timers come to get checked out. To my surprise, the reef was very impressive. The only down side was they had 3 cyclones in the area the previous week, so the vis wasnt quite what I was hoping for. I would say it was maybe 70-80 feet. I know, cry me a river, right? Anyway, we did a second dive on the same site, which turned out to be a night dive. After that dive, we departed for our next days dive destination.
Day 2 had us diving Dynamite Pass, Code hole and Cahllenger Bay. The highlites here was Cod Hole, where they did a Cod Feeding dive. Well, over there, they call Grouper Cod. There was a few monster groupers that showed up for the feeding, and also a wrasse that was bigger than most of the grouper. The Cod feed was interesting, because the dive guide would go around to each person, and hold the bait fish in front of your face, and then you would get a real close look when the cod came in to grab a bite. I have some very entertaining video of this dive I still need to get edited down.
Day 3 had us diving Pixie Garden, Pixie Pinnacle Humphry and Snake Pit. Pixie Pinnacle was a cool dive, because of the way it was shaped. Imagine the nob on the front of a horse saddle, but enlarge it quite a bit. We dropped down to about 90 foot, and then slowly started working our way up the pinnacle, just swimming in a spiral around it, until we reached the top. Really cool dive. But my favorite of the day was Snake Pit. The vis was really bad at snake pit, but from what they told me, for what ever reason, its always a bad vis day there. I would say it was like a really great vis day at Mermet. Maybe 50 foot vis, with a pretty strong current. The dive was named for the sea snakes that reside here. We was told that they have some very potent venom, and if they sunk their teeth into you, well, your pretty much done for. Dont be alarmed, they have very small mouths, and are unable to get their teeth into humans, at leats thats what we was told. And they also said there is no way they could get through a wet suit. I was a little nervous about that, since I was wearing just swiming shorts and a t-shirt. Anyway, we jumped in and proceded against the current. Didnt see much for about the first 10 minutes of the dive. I was trying to take a picture of a lion fish when I saw something moving from the corner of my eye. I looked up to see my first sea snake coming right at me. That was quite a rush. He checked me out, and then just kept swimming past me. By this point, I was up at the front of the group with Paul, our dive guide. It was like this sea snake opened the door to an incredible dive. A few more snakes passed our way, and then we looked up to see some spotted eagle rays swim over head. After they disappeared, we saw what appeared to be 2 Manta Rays swim over head. Amazing. After discussing it later, it was determined these was probably Devil Rays, because the waters are too warm this time of year for the Mantas, but it was still really cool to see. We have a few turtles swim by as well. On the way back to the boat, to cap it off, there was a white tip shark sitting by the line leading up to the boat. What an incredile dive.
The next day, we was at Lizzard island. we had the option to get off the boat, and take a walk on the island, or just relax on the boat. I took the opportunity to relax, download some pictures and just share stories with other people on boat. After the island tour, we had too more dives that night at a dive site called Monolith. After our night dive at Monolith, we headed out into the Coral Sea.
The weather was amazing, and could barely even feel any rocking in the boat. Just enough to rock us to sleep at night. We arrived at our first dive site in the Coral Sea, called Silver City. At this point, I think I heard them say we was about 122 miles off shore. We hit the water for our first dive, and the water was an amazing color of blue, and vis was well over 150 foot.
Paul was getting more comfortable with me and my 2 diving buddies, Mike and Dan, so he started taking us on more adventurous dives, looking for bigger sharks. Our first day in the Coral Sea, we did dives at Silver City, False Enterence, Admiralty and Round the Bend, capped off with a night dive on Admiralty. We definitly saw a few more sharks out there, but we wanted to see Hammerheads. Hadnt seen any yet.
Day 2 in the Coral Sea was a marathon dive day for us. We did 5 dives that day, the dive sites was North Horn, North Horn shark feeding dive, North Horn Wall and Castles, followed by another night dive at Admiratly.
Our first dive on North Horn wall, they said if we dropped down to a ledge at about 100 foot, we might be able to spot some Hammerheads. we dropped down, and hung out for about 10 minutes, but didnt see any hammer heads. Saw a few white tips and reef sharks. We even left the ledge, and swam into the deep blue, away from the reef, but didnt see Hammerheads. We started working our way up the wall, when Paul decided to again leave the wall, and swim into the deep blue. This time at about 40 foot. He was making some kind of noise, that he later told me can call up the bigger sharks from the deep. We did see a few bigger reef sharks come up, and then we finally saw our treasured shark. The shape of the head makes him very easy to identify, I finally saw my first Hammerhead. They kept a pretty good distance away from us, close enough to see them, but not close enough to get any good pictures. But just seeing them was good enough for me at this point. Altogether, we saw saw 5 or 6 Hammerheads. I tried dropping down to get a picture of one, but as I got closer, Isaw it had a baby with it, so I played it safe and left it alone.
Our next dive was the Shark Feed dive. Again, I have some amazing Video of this, and some pretty good pictures too. I would guess we had about 50-60 sharks show up for the feeding, the prized shark here was the Silver Tip. What a beautiful creature. The feeding lasted about 15-20 minutes, and then we just sent for another swim, looking for more sharks.
Dive number 3 was suppose to be another dive on North Horn wall, but Paul had other ideas for us. We stayed pretty shallow, crusing the tops of reefs, and we swam our butts off. Over the tops of reefs, through tunnels, swim throughs, under an over hang. We was all over the place. I knew we was lost when when went over the top of a reef, and Paul popped his head out of the water to see where we was at. After the dive, Mike made the comment that we just took a medal for the Australian Swim team. What a great day.
Our last day, we had the option of going back to the Great Barrier reef, or going to another dive site in the Coral Sea, that they told us the weather conditons have to be perfect for to get to. They said that this other reef system, they usually only get to visit it about 2 or 3 times a year. We took a vote, and headed to Bouganville Reef. How could we pass up the opportunity to dive a site that not many people get to see?
We did 4 dives there, before heading back to Carins. The dive sites was called Corner Shop, Anchors Away, Dungeons and Dragons and South Park.
The high points here was Anchors away, which has a swim through in it, and halfway through, there is an Anchor in the middle of the tunnel. I will post a picture of it sometime this weekend. The final dive was at South Park. We was planning on just doing a very casual wall dive, probably hang out around 60 foot or so, and just take in the sites. Well, I spotted a moray ell at 80 foot that seemed to like the idea of people taking his picture. Once we left the eel, we had 3 pretty good sized Sting Rays swim right by us, the last one doubleing back to check us out. What an amazing final dive of the trip.
We overnighted back to Cairns, where we had breakfast, and then said our goodbyes the staff members, and went back to the hotel. I became pretty good friends with Paul on this trip. He was planning on leaving his job as trip director in a few weeks, but decided that this was going to be his last trip, because he didnt think he was going to have as much fun as he had with us, so he wanted to go out on top. He also said he was going to come to Florida to get cave certified. He looked into it over there, but said it runs about 3500 bucks to get cave certified in Australia.
We had a few days in Cairns before returning. We spent those days doing a cable car ride over the rainforest, and also did some white water rafting, inbetween the tourist activities of shopping and looking around.
This was an amazing trip, and it always makes it even better when you make new freinds. I would highly recommend the Spirit of Freedom to anyone who wants to do a liveaboard in Australia. The crew went out of their way to make sure we all had a great time.
We met at around 4:30AM at the St.louis airport, and departed around 6Am for Houston. The trip was off to a shaky start, due to the fact that when we reported to the airport, it was snowing quite hard. After a quick de-icing on the runway, we was off. After a 2 hour flight, we started our approach into Houston. Looking out my window, I could see us getting closer and closer to the ground, then the runway appeared below us. But to my surprise, I heard the engines fire up, and we lifted back into the sky again. The captain came on and said our approach was too fast, and we had to circle around and try it again. You could see the look on everyones face as we came in for a second time. Luckily, no more problems, and we landed safely. The rest of the trip was pretty much eneventful. Left Houston, stoped in Honolulu to refuel, then off to Guam, and then Cairns Australia.
We arrived in Cairns early Monday morning, it was still dark, and I was still half asleep, so I am not sure about the exact time. It was still dark though. We was taken to the hotel, where I took a nap for a few hours. Around 11:30 or so, we was taken by bus to the port where we boared the Spirit of Freedom.
After a quick briefing on boat procedures, and staff introduction, we was off to the Great Barrier reef. After a quick lunch, we was at dive site number 1, which was called Troppos. I wasnt expecting much, since this was the first dive site of the trip. I figured it was going to be a thrashed out area where all first timers come to get checked out. To my surprise, the reef was very impressive. The only down side was they had 3 cyclones in the area the previous week, so the vis wasnt quite what I was hoping for. I would say it was maybe 70-80 feet. I know, cry me a river, right? Anyway, we did a second dive on the same site, which turned out to be a night dive. After that dive, we departed for our next days dive destination.
Day 2 had us diving Dynamite Pass, Code hole and Cahllenger Bay. The highlites here was Cod Hole, where they did a Cod Feeding dive. Well, over there, they call Grouper Cod. There was a few monster groupers that showed up for the feeding, and also a wrasse that was bigger than most of the grouper. The Cod feed was interesting, because the dive guide would go around to each person, and hold the bait fish in front of your face, and then you would get a real close look when the cod came in to grab a bite. I have some very entertaining video of this dive I still need to get edited down.
Day 3 had us diving Pixie Garden, Pixie Pinnacle Humphry and Snake Pit. Pixie Pinnacle was a cool dive, because of the way it was shaped. Imagine the nob on the front of a horse saddle, but enlarge it quite a bit. We dropped down to about 90 foot, and then slowly started working our way up the pinnacle, just swimming in a spiral around it, until we reached the top. Really cool dive. But my favorite of the day was Snake Pit. The vis was really bad at snake pit, but from what they told me, for what ever reason, its always a bad vis day there. I would say it was like a really great vis day at Mermet. Maybe 50 foot vis, with a pretty strong current. The dive was named for the sea snakes that reside here. We was told that they have some very potent venom, and if they sunk their teeth into you, well, your pretty much done for. Dont be alarmed, they have very small mouths, and are unable to get their teeth into humans, at leats thats what we was told. And they also said there is no way they could get through a wet suit. I was a little nervous about that, since I was wearing just swiming shorts and a t-shirt. Anyway, we jumped in and proceded against the current. Didnt see much for about the first 10 minutes of the dive. I was trying to take a picture of a lion fish when I saw something moving from the corner of my eye. I looked up to see my first sea snake coming right at me. That was quite a rush. He checked me out, and then just kept swimming past me. By this point, I was up at the front of the group with Paul, our dive guide. It was like this sea snake opened the door to an incredible dive. A few more snakes passed our way, and then we looked up to see some spotted eagle rays swim over head. After they disappeared, we saw what appeared to be 2 Manta Rays swim over head. Amazing. After discussing it later, it was determined these was probably Devil Rays, because the waters are too warm this time of year for the Mantas, but it was still really cool to see. We have a few turtles swim by as well. On the way back to the boat, to cap it off, there was a white tip shark sitting by the line leading up to the boat. What an incredile dive.
The next day, we was at Lizzard island. we had the option to get off the boat, and take a walk on the island, or just relax on the boat. I took the opportunity to relax, download some pictures and just share stories with other people on boat. After the island tour, we had too more dives that night at a dive site called Monolith. After our night dive at Monolith, we headed out into the Coral Sea.
The weather was amazing, and could barely even feel any rocking in the boat. Just enough to rock us to sleep at night. We arrived at our first dive site in the Coral Sea, called Silver City. At this point, I think I heard them say we was about 122 miles off shore. We hit the water for our first dive, and the water was an amazing color of blue, and vis was well over 150 foot.
Paul was getting more comfortable with me and my 2 diving buddies, Mike and Dan, so he started taking us on more adventurous dives, looking for bigger sharks. Our first day in the Coral Sea, we did dives at Silver City, False Enterence, Admiralty and Round the Bend, capped off with a night dive on Admiralty. We definitly saw a few more sharks out there, but we wanted to see Hammerheads. Hadnt seen any yet.
Day 2 in the Coral Sea was a marathon dive day for us. We did 5 dives that day, the dive sites was North Horn, North Horn shark feeding dive, North Horn Wall and Castles, followed by another night dive at Admiratly.
Our first dive on North Horn wall, they said if we dropped down to a ledge at about 100 foot, we might be able to spot some Hammerheads. we dropped down, and hung out for about 10 minutes, but didnt see any hammer heads. Saw a few white tips and reef sharks. We even left the ledge, and swam into the deep blue, away from the reef, but didnt see Hammerheads. We started working our way up the wall, when Paul decided to again leave the wall, and swim into the deep blue. This time at about 40 foot. He was making some kind of noise, that he later told me can call up the bigger sharks from the deep. We did see a few bigger reef sharks come up, and then we finally saw our treasured shark. The shape of the head makes him very easy to identify, I finally saw my first Hammerhead. They kept a pretty good distance away from us, close enough to see them, but not close enough to get any good pictures. But just seeing them was good enough for me at this point. Altogether, we saw saw 5 or 6 Hammerheads. I tried dropping down to get a picture of one, but as I got closer, Isaw it had a baby with it, so I played it safe and left it alone.
Our next dive was the Shark Feed dive. Again, I have some amazing Video of this, and some pretty good pictures too. I would guess we had about 50-60 sharks show up for the feeding, the prized shark here was the Silver Tip. What a beautiful creature. The feeding lasted about 15-20 minutes, and then we just sent for another swim, looking for more sharks.
Dive number 3 was suppose to be another dive on North Horn wall, but Paul had other ideas for us. We stayed pretty shallow, crusing the tops of reefs, and we swam our butts off. Over the tops of reefs, through tunnels, swim throughs, under an over hang. We was all over the place. I knew we was lost when when went over the top of a reef, and Paul popped his head out of the water to see where we was at. After the dive, Mike made the comment that we just took a medal for the Australian Swim team. What a great day.
Our last day, we had the option of going back to the Great Barrier reef, or going to another dive site in the Coral Sea, that they told us the weather conditons have to be perfect for to get to. They said that this other reef system, they usually only get to visit it about 2 or 3 times a year. We took a vote, and headed to Bouganville Reef. How could we pass up the opportunity to dive a site that not many people get to see?
We did 4 dives there, before heading back to Carins. The dive sites was called Corner Shop, Anchors Away, Dungeons and Dragons and South Park.
The high points here was Anchors away, which has a swim through in it, and halfway through, there is an Anchor in the middle of the tunnel. I will post a picture of it sometime this weekend. The final dive was at South Park. We was planning on just doing a very casual wall dive, probably hang out around 60 foot or so, and just take in the sites. Well, I spotted a moray ell at 80 foot that seemed to like the idea of people taking his picture. Once we left the eel, we had 3 pretty good sized Sting Rays swim right by us, the last one doubleing back to check us out. What an amazing final dive of the trip.
We overnighted back to Cairns, where we had breakfast, and then said our goodbyes the staff members, and went back to the hotel. I became pretty good friends with Paul on this trip. He was planning on leaving his job as trip director in a few weeks, but decided that this was going to be his last trip, because he didnt think he was going to have as much fun as he had with us, so he wanted to go out on top. He also said he was going to come to Florida to get cave certified. He looked into it over there, but said it runs about 3500 bucks to get cave certified in Australia.
We had a few days in Cairns before returning. We spent those days doing a cable car ride over the rainforest, and also did some white water rafting, inbetween the tourist activities of shopping and looking around.
This was an amazing trip, and it always makes it even better when you make new freinds. I would highly recommend the Spirit of Freedom to anyone who wants to do a liveaboard in Australia. The crew went out of their way to make sure we all had a great time.