Gypsy Journal - Search for Journals Tamie Poepping
Australia

Cairns & the Great Barrier Reef

Friday - 4 Mar 2005
Cairns & Great Barrier Reef , Queensland - Australia


Carolyn and I scuba diving

Scuba Diving on the Great Barrier Reef

Carolyn and I headed out on a 3-day/2-night live-aboard excursion on a dive boat with Cairns Dive Centre. We did 10 dives including 2 night dives and saw an amazing number and variety of sea life, including white-tipped reef sharks, green sea turtles, sting rays, parrot fish, and clownfish (aka Nemo). One sea turtle had an obvious "bite" missing from his shell presumably due to a shark.



Divers on the Kangaroo Explorer

The diveboat Kangaroo Explorer

It took a few hours on a high speed boat to get us out to the diveboat, the Kangaroo Explorer. We had a great dive staff from CDC (Thanks Laura, Glen, John, Chris, Brett, Hayden, Jo, and Owen), and met alot of other people while living aboard the boat. While some people were busy taking courses, the rest of us were just doing 'fun' dives. We were exposed to a whole new world of wildlife -- some more exposed than others thanks to the 'moon' light.



Number 1 Dive Group

Dive Group

We especially had a fun time diving with a great group of divers that were on the boat for the first half of our trip.

Tamie & Carolyn (aka "Hey Canada"), Heather (Scotland), Khaled & Tarek (England), Ryley & Derek (Utah), Paul (Holland), Caroline (& Tracey behind camera)(England).




Carolyn and a glimpse of the Great Barrier Reef

Dive, dive, dive

No need to pack much for the diveboat. We basically lived in our bikinis and sarongs, sometimes with as little as 45 min between consecutive dives. Always jumped into our sexy 'stinger suits' before a dive, to avoid jellyfish stings. On one particular dive, we came up to the surface after our dive and had to dodge some 2-3cm jellyfish on the swim back to the boat. We had heard a frightening story about a diver from a few days prior who had a large swollen ear from a jellyfish sting.



Rick and Janet gearing up

Rick and Janet Join the Dive Boat

Fellow Canadians and Gypsy Journalists, who we met in Cairns and told us about this great website (check out their travel journal at gypsy = wherearejanetandrick), joined the dive boat on our last day. Looking forward to meeting up with them back in Toronto one day.



Derek (aka Utah) and Carolyn (aka Canada)

Back ashore in Cairns

When we got off the diveboat, we met up with some of the Number 1 Dive Group and the Cairns Dive Centre crew back in Cairns.

We then headed out around midnight on the overnight bus (10+ hours) to Airlie Beach for our next adventure.




Caroline and Riley




Tamie and CDC Dive Instructor John



Previous
Cape Tribulation
Next
Sailing the Whitsunday Islands
  Tamie Poepping - Bio and Journals
  Australia - Intro Average Rating of 8 Viewers
Chapters of Australia
  Western Australia (Perth and the southwest)
  Cape Tribulation
  Cairns & the Great Barrier Reef
  Sailing the Whitsunday Islands
  Fraser Island

       

Happy Trails to You

Copyright © 1999 - 2001 Gypsy Journal