SCUBA diving in Cairns

Of all the things in Australia that I thought might kill me I never imagined the possibility that a cyclone might do me in. The last day of our 3-day scuba adventure came to an end a day early. At 3:00 am, cyclone Tasha broke our bow mooring line. The engines were started and the stern mooring line was released so we could get away from the reef and into deeper water. The deeper water couldn’t puncture the hull and sink us like the coral could, but it did have bigger waves. The ride to the leeward side of a large island was like a cheap roller coaster with no inverted maneuvers but plenty of bone jarring action. While behind the protection of the island the storm passed, and as the day progressed we were treated to a nice lunch at a newly renovated resort, but no more scuba diving.
The diving we had the first two days was splendid. We had several guided dives that helped us feel comfortable with our newly acquired skills and allowed us to focus our attention on enjoying the reef and all its wonders. The diving we originally did in Thailand seemed two dimensional, with flat reefs all at one depth. Here the diving took on a third dimension with coral walls that would go down, down, down. We saw some very cool stuff on a night dive including sharks, rays, and sleeping sea turtles. There was one turtle awake and swimming. The guide helped Ahnika and Mikayla scratch it’s back. Apparently turtles like this because our fingernails removed things from their shell that they cant get off themselves. You can imagine how special the girls thought this was.
The first picture shows Mikayla, Ahnika, Gary, and Kristy from left to right. The second picture is a giant clam about 3 feet across. The meat of the clam is white so the colors you see are other organisms living on the clam.
~Gary