Great Barrier Reef Diving

We took off early in the morning for our Great Barrier Reef cruise and embarked on Down Under Dive. My nerves were starting due to the intro scuba dive I had signed up for and I wasn't sure how I would handle it. The cruise out to the reef was a rough one. So many people were getting sick. I had no issues without taking anything. My stomach of steel for motion sickness reigned supreme thankfully! We split into briefing groups, scuba and snorkel. I got briefed on the scuba with about 30 other people. This is when I realized how crowded our boat was. If you want to scuba it takes forever to get on the water since there is only one room to get geared up.

I went on my first dive and had to link arms with an instructor and 3 other people. One person felt too claustrophobic and didn't make it down. I thought it was surprisingly easy to make our way to the bottom of the ocean despite my initial hesitation. We dived for 25 minutes and saw plenty of fish, touched a giant clam, saw a sting ray, and we were able to kneel on the ocean floor to witness the fish swim around. 

It was amazing and I was hooked. I decided to snorkel a bit when I was done with the dive at the first reef we were at with Aniek. The dive was definitely worth it in comparison to the snorkeling at this reef. The boat crew prepared lunch which everyone happily devoured and laid out on the sun deck for a bit. Then we moved on to the next reef and I decided to opt for a second dive at that reef as well. On this dive we were able to swim out on our own. It was way more fun this way! I even got to swim with a turtle! So fun!

✋

Overall, the staff was awesome and there were plenty of fun people on the boat although the boat was pretty much at capacity. The experience was well worth the money even with the rough seas. 

✋