Diving the Great Barrier Reef

Great Barrier Reef, originally uploaded by jokecamp.

SCUBA Joe, originally uploaded by jokecamp.

I've gone from the central Australian desert to the tropical rain forest and coast.

I just finished a five day SCUBA diving course. We spent two days in the classroom/pool learning how to dive. Then we spent three days staying on the dive boat off the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Cairns, Australia.

The reef was amazing. The fish and life down on the reef is bursting with activity. You see hundreds of fish once you peer down into the water. Diving underwater was a completely foreign experience but the entire group was able to dive comfortably after a couple dives. I still need to work on not breathing through my air so fast.

The best was the chance encounters with reef sharks. They were quite passive and we usually scared them away. We saw several sharks, some over a meter in length.

We also did a few special dives. We did a night dive in which we had to jump into the water while we could see sharks swimming around the boat. We did a deep dive of 25 meters and checked for nitrogen narcosis. Then the last dive I did was with an underwater digital camera where I tried to take a few decent shots. Not so easy to focus when the current is bobbing you up and down.

The reef was beautiful. It lives up to the reputation.