We found Nemo!
We woke up early and ready to go, repacked all our stuff so we could live out of only half of our suitcases, enjoyed our a la carte breakfast we had picked up the night before, and headed down to the lobby to wait for our transport. Just as we started to look at our watches and worry, the Spirit of Freedom van swept in, grabbed our stuff and we were off! After swinging by a few more hotels and picking up more guests we arrived at the boat.
We were greeted by a very cheerful, friendly SOF crew who was ushered us on board, took our photos, carried all our luggage down for us, and made us feel at home very quickly. Kiri gave us a tour of the ship and then we were giving a briefing in the dining area while we pulled away from the port. We were off to the Great Barrier Reef! While on our way we took care of the “paperwork” – showing our dive cards, etc, and getting all of our gear sorted out (we brought our own masks and snorkels, and I brought my booties, but we rented just about everything else). After that we had a delicious lunch and were off to dive!
Our first two dives were pretty good – we saw some clown fish inside a green anemone, two turtles – the one on the first dive was nipping at coral and the one on the second dive was nestled into the coral trying to nap, we saw lots of different kinds of parrot fish (my personal favorite) that were distinctly different from any of the ones you seen in FL, and we saw some pretty clams!
As soon as we got back on board we started our trek to the upper ribbon reefs and the boat started rocking a great bit more. I’m someone who does pretty well with motion sickness –when I can see the horizon. Problem – you can’t see the horizon in the dark. : ( Definitely detracted from the evening. I toughed it out and didn’t get sick, but didn’t have an appetite for dinner. I’m really hoping I will tonight.
Oh, and our schedule is as follows:
1st breaky (cold breakfast)
Dive 1
2nd breaky (hot breakfast)
Dive 2
Lunch
Dive 3
Afternoon tea
Dive 4
Watch Sunset
Dive 5 (night dive)
Dinner and dessert
Not bad, eh?
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