February 21 - Australia: Great Barrier Reef, Queensland
Again, we woke to the anchor around 6:00 and then again at 6:30 to Nao on the "Wakey! Wakey! Dive Time!" patrol. I was completely miserable. My right ear was stuffed up and I doubted that it would work when trying to equalize. (Think of your ears adjusting to the pressure in an airplane. Underwater, it's more dramatic and more important to make that adjustment. And it's very difficult to do with a cold.) I decided to give it a go anyway and hoped for luck. If I descend very slowly, then maybe it will equalize itself. At any rate, I was a bit grumpy because I didn't want to miss out on some great dives because of this rotten cold.
Dive #1: Steve's Bommie
Depth: 23 meters
Bottom Time: 61 minutes (7:23AM - 8:24AM)
Visibility: 15 meters
Well, it took 7 minutes to descend in what would normally be a 20 second descent. But I did it! I nearly gave up after the first meter because my ear wasn't budging and I felt bad holding Jon back. I waved him on and told him I was going back to the boat. But he was so patient with me and insisted that I keep trying. I didn't want to push it and was worried about equalizing too hard and causing a Round Window Rupture. So I took my time and eventually heard a little high-pitched squeak from my right ear, which told me the pressure had released through a very small hole in the congestion. Thank goodness!
Once we made it down there, I was so glad that Jon had stuck with me and encouraged me to continue. Diving around this bommie was like diving in an aquarium. There were hundreds of little fish on the reef, and lots of bigger game fish out in the blue. A school of big eyed trevaly swam around the bommie in a massive circle. We circled the bommie a few times, gradually decreasing our depth until we were on top of the bommie. There were yellow-tailed goatfish, lionfish, shark, and hundreds of little damsels. On the top of the bommie, there were at least 20 anemone fish in various different anemones. I don't think I've ever seen so many!
Just Like An Aquarium - Looking Up from the Bottom of the Bommie
A Huge Lion Fish
My ears were completely clogged when we got back on the boat, and I couldn't hear beyond muffled voices. So I decided to give my eardrums and my body a rest and slept for the rest of the morning.
Dive #2: Clam Garden
Depth: 20 meters
Bottom Time: 66 minutes (10:05AM - 11:11AM)
Visibility: 17 meters
Jon dove with Dan for this next dive at "Clam Garden" and has this to say in his dive log: "We went into two great caves, both about thirty meters long. Saw two giant clams that were about two meters long!" So there you have it, and here are some pictures he took:
A Giant Clam
A Cave
Another Giant Clam
For lunch, we had salad and meat pies. Jenny put little Australian flags in each of the meat pies to liven it up a bit. So cute! I wasn't much of a conversationalist at lunch, because I couldn't hear what people were saying. Steve thought this was very funny and pretended to talk to me by moving his mouth without making any sound. I teased him for being mean and we had a good laugh about it before I punched him playfully in the arm.
Dive #3: Lark Garden (Ribbon Reef #7)
Depth: 15.8 meters
Bottom Time: 44 minutes (1:53PM - 2:37PM)
Visibility: 20 meters
This was a drift dive along a gorgeous wall of reef. Ian backed the boat up to the wall, we all jumped off, and he drove the boat further away to anchor off the reef. Because it took me longer to descend, Jon and I ended up at the back of the group, which suited us just fine. We kept the wall to our right and slowed our pace so we were the only people around. This wall had some of the most beautiful coral I've ever seen - blues, pinks, purples, greens. Absolutely lovely. I imagine that this is what the rest of the reef looks like when it hasn't been bleached. There were some large parrot fish, but the rest of the marine life seemed to be pretty typical.
Until I saw it - a MASSIVE manta ray!!!!
It was gliding along the bottom of the reef, about 10 meters to our left in the blue. It looked like an angel. Immediately, I began to kick to Jon - who was slightly deeper than I was - and I screamed through my regulator to get his attention. He didn't hear me, but the manta ray did. It paused for a second and then raced away. Jon caught it in his peripheral just as it scurried off and we both sat and watched it disappear. Such a quick glimpse of something that we've never seen before. And it really was huge - at least six feet if not more. Wow.
We continued on the rest of the tour of the wall, hoping to catch another glimpse of the manta ray. But no such luck. About 20 minutes into our dive, I looked at my air gauge out of habit rather than necessity. Jon and I are to the point that we can dive over an hour and still have plenty of air left. A full tank has 200 bar of air, and Jon and I usually end a dive with 90-100 bar. Once you get to 50 bar, you're in the "red zone" and are supposed to return to the boat immediately. So naturally, I was completely shocked that my gauge showed 40 bar. 40 BAR?!?!?! I can't remember the last time I've been this low on air!! I showed my gauge to Jon and watched his eyes go wide. He had 150 bar in his tank, and we usually match each other perfectly with our air consumption. So he swam around me and made sure my tank was open fully. It was.
I looked at my gauge again, and then at my computer - 22 minutes into the dive and I was out of air. How did this happen? I can only assume that my tank wasn't filled between the morning's dive and this one. But I checked it before I got in the water. What I didn't do, however, was breathe through it and watch the gauge. Sometimes, a partially-filled tank can show 200 bar when initially turned on, but then levels out once breathing starts. This is why we're supposed to breathe and watch the gauge as part of the surface check. And this, I didn't do. Naughty diver! So now I'm paying the price.
I gave Jon the ascend signal, but he pulled out his alternate air source and looked up at me expectantly. Hmmmm.... yeah, I guess I could do that. I ditched my regulator and put in his alternate, so we were both breathing off his tank and could continue the dive. This makes things a bit awkward when swimming, because I had to angle myself at his back. And we kept kicking each other, but we did extend the dive by another 20 minutes. It was also difficult because my ear was so sensitive that I immediately felt any slight change in depth. This was easy to deal with when I was on my own - I could carefully maintain my depth and not descend to look at interesting things. But Jon wasn't quite as attuned to the depth changes as I was and I kept having to tap him on the shoulder and give him the "ascend a little" sign. My ear was pulsing. Poor boy. It's one thing to have a nagging wife, it's another thing to have that nagging wife follow him underwater.
For our safety stop, I switched back to my own tank to so we could maintain buoyancy at 5 meters. Not an easy thing to do with an empty tank that wants to be buoyant. So I had to hang onto some dead coral to maintain depth. Naughty diver again!!!
Well, we'll just chalk this one up to a learning experience.
On the surface, we hailed the tender (dinghy) to come and get us, as arranged as part of the drift dive. Ambrose and John were in it, and tossed over two ropes to tow us back to the boat. Kind of like tubing, but in full scuba gear. But all in all, it was a fun trip.
And did I mention the manta ray?
Dive #4: Challenger Bay (Ribbon Reef #10)
Depth: 11 meters
Bottom Time: 71 minutes (6:13PM - 7:24PM)
Visibility: 10 meters
This was a "dusk dive" because we dove at sunset and well into the darkness of night. Pretty fun! The descents are getting easier for me, but I still have to hear the high-pitched squeak out of my right ear to tell me that it's equalized. There was a lagoon ray eyeing us as we got to the bottom of the mooring line, but then it swam away. We laid on the bottom for a few minutes to see if we could spot any garden eels in the sand, but it was too late to see them. Then we dove around the reefs, which was like swimming through a garden at 5-6 meters. We saw lots of lionfish and trevaly, and some tons of little things.
Two Red Lionfish
A Pufferfish
Dinner was a delicious beef stroganoff. The air conditioning in the galley wasn't working well, so most of us retired to our cabins early so we could cool off. But then Ian dragged us back to give us a slide show of tomorrow's trip to Cod Hole and what to expect. I was nestled comfortably on one of the sofas and between my cold, the heat of the room, and the darkened lights, I promptly passed out and slept through the entire show. I can barely hear anyway, so it doesn't really matter. Jon filled me in on the rules: kneel on the bottom and no sudden movements during the feeding. Got it.
