Spirit of Freedom - TRIP Gallery

Thu 29th December 2011 - Mon 2nd January 2012

The 7-day passengers, Lindsay & Dee, Luis & Priscilla, Anton & Mila, Ken and Annabelle were joined by 15 new passengers giving us a full boat for the last trip of 2011. Our afternoon started with some awesome check out dives at Monolith where we had the joy of a 3m+ Black Manta Ray cruising past in the shallows. That was an awesome way to complete Lindsay's Nitrox course with her certification dive swimming with a Manta!

Lighthouse Bommie started our second day off with crystal clear water, lots of sea snakes winding along in the deeper sections of the coral garden, turtles drifting lazily past while thousands of reef fish adorned the Bommie itself. Rod's Rock was also crystal clear water and schools of jacks, trevally, fusiliers and snapper in and around the two smaller pinnacles on the far side of the rock. Tiny blue lobster and several awesome nudibranchs were spotted with several pipefish starting to do the elegant mating dance. The Cod Hole had the usual suspects turning up halfway through the dive with the big Potato Cod following the divers along the gorgeous coral ridges, hunting for a morsel of food. Challenger Bay was our stop for the afternoon dive and night dive and the stunning coral formations along the wall with the Giant Trevally and Snapper hunting in the torchlight, White Tip Reef Sharks in a feeding frenzy with a Moray Eel rearing up to protect itself! What an awesome first night dive for Vicki, Jeffrey, Leslie, Mail, Frank and Melissa!

We started New Year's Eve with a lot more wind and a lovely dive at Pixie Wall where families of nudibranchs were clustered on the deeper bommies and schools of fusiliers weaved their way through the branching corals in the shallows. Pixie Gardens brought us 2 more Manta Rays and a pair of cuttlefish and everyone grabbed a photo with the gorgeous Lionfish hanging out near the mooring line. Wonder Wall and Wonder Gardens had hundreds of fusiliers and snapper at mooring line; Andy and Lauren spotted a leafy scorpionfish on the bommie at the edge of the wall and Lindsay went diving in the Spidey stingersuit and was awesome in the underwater photos as Spidergirl! Don't worry Kenji, Takeshi and Jason, your secret from Wonder Gardens is safe with me, I'd never mention that two instructors and their awesome buddy got lost and needed to be picked up, ever, honest!
We toasted the New Year with a glass of champagne at dinner and then headed to bed early to be ready for the first dives of 2012 which started with a glorious sunrise through the clouds at George's Wall for our first dive; where several white tip reef sharks were lazily swimming along the sand at the bottom of the wall. Two dives at Steve's Bommie with octopus, pipefish, snappers, barracuda, sharks, stonefish, and mantis shrimps were brilliant and rated by many as the best dives of the trip again. We finished the trip off with a beautiful dive at Century Bay with its pristine coral gardens being home to cuttlefish laying eggs and a leopard shark lying on the sand near the boat!

Congratulations to Lindsay for having the best Nitrox certification dive ever, swimming with the Manta Ray, and also to Leslie, Jeffrey, Frank and Kristin for hitting their 50th dives. I would like to wish all our passengers a very happy New Year and wish them all the best for 2012; we hope to see you again someday soon!

Nick Leigh (Trip Director)

Phone :	+61 (0) 7 4047 9150
Fax :	+61 (0) 7 4047 9110
Email :
PO Box 1276, Cairns QLD 4870 Australia

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Spirit of Freedom - TRIP Gallery

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