Spirit of Freedom - TRIP Gallery

Thu 1st March 2012 - Mon 5th March 2012

Ten new passengers joined Jan and Joel, our 7 day passengers, on Thursday morning after their scenic reef flight to Lizard Island. We headed out to the Cod Hole for our afternoon dives where Denise and Tim, Brenda and Ray, Nanette and Walter, Mauricio, Trond, Pasi and Andy met the Potato Cods as soon as they descended! Huge schools of fusiliers and trevally darted between the coral ridges of the Cod Hole while several White Tip Reef Sharks lazily swum underneath them.

Overnight we travelled out to Osprey Reef and were treated to very light winds all day. We started with a deep dive along the Coral Canyons before heading to The Gap to explore the cracks and swimthroughs. Grey Reef Sharks were cruising along the deep drop off while the White Tips were resting in the sand. Several large scribbled Pufferfish were spotted being cleaned and schools of butterflyfish swriled amongst the coral gardens. The massive school of Big Eye Trevally streamed in from the deep and formed a silver ball of fish under the boat at False Entrance and lots of Grey Reef Sharks were swimming under the boat at Admiralty. The swimthrough was a firm favourite with all the divers with the beautiful orange fan at the entrance and the anchor located in the middle of the swimthrough. The night dive was dominated by trevally hunting in the torchlight and several large shrimp were spotted walking over the coral while parrotfish hid in their mucus bubbles.

The sun was shining as we jumped in at North Horn for our first dive on the third day of the trip and several Grey Reef Sharks were seen down in the depths while the divers headed along Soft Coral Wall. The giant soft coral and huge fans were beautiful in the morning sunlight and the massive Potato Cod were resting on the base of the slope. The Shark Feed was awesome with three big Silver Tips coming in from the depths and the biggest one of all of them circled around the thirty plus Grey Reef Sharks that were feeding and gave everyone a reasonably close up view of its majestic size and grace. Our afternoon dives at Castles and Halfway Wall were nice slow relaxed dives, enjoying the fantastic coral formations and thousands of reef fish present. Garden Eels gently bobbed up and down in the sand patches and White Tip Reef Sharks rested on the bottom.

On our final morning we woke up at Ribbon Reef number 5 for our morning dive at George's Wall before heading to the world famous Steve's Bommie for two dives. Steve's was magnificent as always with thousands of fish schooling around the bommie. One Mantis Shrimp was out on the top of the bommie bashing at the coral structure with an ear splitting crack every time he struck. The Flame File Shell was a spectacle with its pulsing white light and we were treated to a large Green Turtle lazily swimming around us on our safety stop for 5 minutes. The final dive of the trip was at Century Bay where Brenda finally saw a Moray Eel and she and Ray managed to navigate their way back to the boat, well done to them!

Congratulations to Ray and Brenda on their first night dive and thank you to all the passengers for an excellent trip!.

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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