TUES (10/6)
Transportation to the Dive: 2 sharks in the harbor
SCUBA dive: My first Scuba dive in the ocean (and my first dive lower than 8 ft!). I went 15 meters down in 33 min. Lion Fish, eel, and turtle
Snorkeling:first time on the boat. Saw lots of different fish and 3 white tailed sharks.
WED (10/7)
Boat snorkel:great!!! Saw 2 pairs of turtles mating. One turtle left the female, stuck its head above water and then quickly swam passing right by me! Best snorkel and seeing stuff yet! Also saw a huge polka dotted fish that had other small fish inside of its gills cleaning.
Harbor Snorkel (530pm): amazing. I literally swam with a bunch of rainbow fish (parrot fish)!! It was sooo great and on top of that (or should I say below), we saw a 7 ft. shark swim under us! It was terrifying. I also saw lots of cleaner fish.
Night Snorkel: First one, it was pretty cool. The water must have been in the high 50s but I wasn’t too terribly cold but some people were crying about the cold. Ive been in colder waters lol (ie. Alaska). We saw a baby black lion fish, 2 turtles and a Wobygong shark.
lion fish (my favorite!)
THURS (10/8)
Boat Snorkel (2pm): it was pretty rough today but still a crazy experience. We were collecting data out in the blue pools (like the first day). We were collecting data for our research on giant clams. It was really cool because the giant clams were bigger than I had expected! They were about the size of my arm! I really got into diving today. I probably went under about 20 feet or so. Overall I was really impressed with my swimming today. I was having so much fun that I lost my underwater camera and didn’t even know it! I had only 3 pictures left. I HATE losing pictures. Im just trying to think that everything happens for a reason. I’ll just buy another $25 camera…ugg. Dang it, my first SCUBA dive was on that camera and seeing those sea turtles up close was an experience that I had hoped to capture and cherish but uhh that’ll just be a story to remember.
FRI (10/9)
Boat Snorkel (10:30 am: And it only gets better! It was the best snorkel of my life. I hope that I will always be able to remember this all of my life. I saw and swam with so many beautiful schools of fish. And they were color changing too! I couldn’t tell if it was just the refraction of the water but it definitely looked like they changed from blue to white to pink! Imagine. I school of 50+ fishes all swimming a lot with the current and al changing colors at the same time! Amazing. I also saw a sea turtle again, but this time had to be the most beautiful experience of my life. I wanted to cry. I was swimming after the sea turtle, but just observing from a distance and was swimming after it for a good minute and then a jellyfish stung me. UG! But as I was swimming I kind of hoped that I would get stung so that I knew what it would feel like. And oh boy, it got me pretty darn good. I would describe it as a whip that was felt all over my thigh or 15 really big paper cuts all at once. It was worth it though, not everyone gets to swim after sea turtles on the GBR!
Harbor Snorkel (5:00 pm: Just the four of us in the group decided to go on one last harbor snorkel. The visibility was pretty poor but we only had one last chance. We saw lots of different fish. Its like every time you go out on a snorkel you atleast see one new species that you haven’t seen before. I specifically remember seeing this hug fish as big as my arm span that was purple with white polka dots. A large creature, but beautiful. After the harbor snorkel, we did flips and jumps off the pier and watched the sun set. A great ending to a magical trip!
Shannon jumping off the pier
me and a sting ray
a beautiful sunset to a beautiful trip
"Take every opportunity that is thrown at you because if you don’t, you’ll wonder what you would be like if you did.
