The Live-Aboard: Part 2

We woke up bright and early, and the boat had changed sites for the dive. At the new location, we hopped in and headed down the reef. The colors were absolutely spectacular. The coral was healthy and vibrant, and the fish were plentiful.

I was ignoring my depth, and got in trouble with Maria for going too deep in the water column. I saw a ray and another white tip reef shark sleeping on the sand, and I wanted to go cuddle with them, but going to 30 meters after a prior day of 4 dives is bad. Maria made angry hand gestures at me and motioned to the depth gauge on our regulator. I decided to comply with her wishes and not get the bends.

HEY BUDDY! WANNA CUDDLE?

Creeping on some little fish.

A little too far down. Oops.

I noticed a strange piece of debris floating along the bottom (of a more shallow area) and investigated. It looked like a piece of a broken leaf, even drifting along the sand in a similar manner. But upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a fish.

Leaf?

Nope. Fish.

We got back on the boat for a surface interval time and something to eat, then hopped back in the water and headed in the other direction along the reef.

He posed for me.

Nothing really prepares you for the sheer size of the cliffs and the drop offs. We would be swimming along the corals, looking at the bright colors and snapping photos of fish. 

Suddenly, we would exit the shallow area and be faced with a stunning wall of thousands of years of coral growth. 

We swam along the reef, seeing more fish and even a large squid, which changed its camouflage as we approached. 

When we began to get low on air, we turned around and headed back to the boat.

We showered and packed up as the boat went back to the dive site from the day before. We were met by the original vessel, which we transferred on to. There were a group of four drunk Aussie men who were laughing and harassing a female dive instructor. When they saw my large stockpile of candy, they asked to have some. Being the generous American I am, I told them no (kidding, I gave them a bag of skittles).

After making it to port, we put our belongings in a locker and went to get dinner before our bus back to Townsville left. We went back to the food court and were pleased to see that some American football highlights were on ESPN. It suddenly hit us that we were only a few weeks away from leaving this country.

And that final exams began in a few days.