Thomas Hawkins tagged posts

COMPUTER DIVE

AMAZING VIZ!!!!!!! What more can I say?! Got down to 40m and could still see the surface clear as day. Spent some time drifting along the 1000m wall, and spotted a few pelagics hovering away in the blue but couldn’t identify them. Was getting seriously narked, but it was all good fun!!!

COMPUTER DIVE

Pretty average dive really, saw the usual Barrier reef stuff: Triggerfish, Parrotfish, Stingray. Main problem was the tiny 9L tank we were given, so it proved to be a tad restricting on depth/ bottom times.

Took dive tender out from the sailing boat I was on to a really cute little dive boat. Unfortunately there seemed to be loads of intro-divers in the water so that was a tad annoying. Still, a nice lot of coral and the usual reef fish, but nothing as impressive as further North.

COMPUTER DIVE

Another nice bommie in the middle of the blue, this one was (as you could guess by the name!) split down the middle and the gap was filled with loads of stunning gorgonias and feather stars. You could just swim around and around the bommie and see something different every time, but this dive was about the small things. No big action really, but hundreds of little critters in the coral. Also found the cutest baby lionfish you could ever see. A must see dive site.

COMPUTER DIVE

Quite a strong current at this site, we were right on the corner of the reef so that could explain it. It also explained the amazing number of fish around. Swimming along the wall seemed to be thousands of trevally and other pelagics, while the reef itself was teeming with angelfish, anthias, butterflyfish, and the ubiqitous damselfish. Coral was in good shape with some very large areas of staghorn coral and a few lonely brain corals. The current helped in the end as the return to the boat was more of a cross-legged drift than a swim!

The site comprised of a single underwater mount (Bommie) rising up from the sea floor around 2km from the main reef. So it wasn’t surprising to find that the current was running quite impressively. Also impressive was the amount of life on one small patch of reef. Honestly, this place is a reef-scientists dream. Every part of this site has something different about it. From the patrolling lionfish and white tip sharks at the base (around 30m) to the swirling schools of anthias and damselfish at the top (around 5m) this site has it all. The crew on the boat had attached at a small marker to a tiny crevice and inside you could just make out a flame-file shell with its glowing blue mantle and fiery red tentacles. All in all, a stunning site...

COMPUTER DIVE.

Gorgeous, that’s all I can say. get away from the day sites and then you’ll see the Great Barrier Reef at it’s best. Hundreds of fish, loads of big Potato Cod, and the most beautiful coral you could wish for. Even down at 33m it was rush hour, with huge shoals of sweetlips under overhangs and schools of trevally out in the blue. Just amazing!

Good spot for a night dive this one, seemed that every white tipped shark on the Barrier Reef had turned up. Quite daunting at first but i figured they were more scared of me than I was of them! Lots of nice coral around, the kind that turns all fuzzy at night, and there were countless small fish and shrimp sheltering in the coral. To top it off, on the way back to the boat we came across the cutest Epaulette shark, a good way to finish off a quality dive.

Reef not really in a very good state. Lots of algae which suggests a large surface run-off into the sea, probably due to this site being much closer to the coast than others. The reef also seems to have taken a pounding from tourism with alot of coral broken and lying around. This is one of the main Day-Boat sites so that could be a factor. Still a good variety of fish around but nothing like other sites on the Barrier Reef.

Nice dive site this one, plenty so see with alot of good underwater topography to explore. Mainly just the normal reefy stuff around, plenty of Giant clams though.