Wheeler Reef Trip/Week 5

Hey everyone!

I want to start off by saying that I apologize for the link to my photos. I realized the other day that the link was not correct...I have since corrected it, so you all can go directly to my photos page. With that being said, I have added photos from New Zealand as well as my Wheeler Reef Trip photos.

Last weekend I went out on a live aboard to the Great Barrier Reef...a reef by the name of Wheeler Reef. The ride to Wheeler Reef from Townsville is about 5 1/2 hours. Our trip out to the reef was overnight and absolutely horrible! hah! It was a good thing my roomate Claudia (from Germany and in 3 of my 4 classes) had sea sickness medication. I took one of those pills thinking it would be a good precaution. I've never had issues with sea sickness, but I thought I had better take one just in case. It turned out to be a good idea because we ended up hitting a storm, so the waves were massive, it was rainy and the boat was rocking from side to side in an awful fashion! And to top it all off, our room was on the top level of the boat so we felt it the most. So sleeping during the night was in about 2 hour spurts.

Once we arrived at the reef about 4 in the morning, all was well. We were very well protected from the waves by the reef. On our first day, we completed 4 dives at Wheeler, including one night dive...probably the best dive I've done yet! Anyway, let's start from the beginning. Claudia and I were dive buddies along with another girl Whitney who is also studying at JCU for the semester. She is from Oregon. The three of us completed 2 of the 4 dives together for the day. Whitney was a bit sea sick so she only joined Claudia and I for 2 dives.

We had a great day, strolling around looking at all of the corals and fish. It was absolutely unbelievable. The photos don't do it justice. There is just so much life all around! On our third dive, we saw a white tip reef shark...for about 2 minutes before he hurried off the other way. Our 4th dive consisted of a night dive...the coolest by far. Claudia and I decided to join two of the other JCU Dive Club guys (both of whom I believe are dive masters) for this dive. For some reason two girls did not feel too sure about diving in the ocean at night alone...I wonder why? hah! Anyway, we had a great dive.

I will tell you it is quite cool being in the water at night, when all you can see is what is in the little tunnel of light in front of you (via your dive light). Right away we saw another white tip reef shark swim by. We went on up toward a big bommie (what they call big mounds of coral surrounded by sand). While here, out of the gloom came this massive stingray...at least 5 feet across! The thing was huge and just gliding over the top of the coral below. We watched all of the fish sleeping in the corals and watched some of the bigger fish swimming about. One fish we saw (I believe a humphead wrasse) was as big as me...only fatter in all directions! It was huge! Anyway...we went up a little further and the coolest thing began...we were watching about 2-3 white tip reef sharks and I believe about 5 or 6 bronze whaler sharks feeding...or at least swimming around the coral searching for sleeping fish to eat! I know you are all thinking this is crazy, but it was amazing! The really cool part about it was that when the sharks were out of view of the dive light...at times you still knew where they were. I noticed that shark eyes are similar to cat eyes in that at night you can see the eyes of a shark before you see the actual shark...just like a cat when you shine light in its general direction. The sharks were somewhat attracted to the light and would swim within about 3 feet of you before swimming off the other way. I realize that this may seem scary and even stupid on our parts...but I assure you...we were completely fine! The sharks were only maybe 5 or 6 feet...nothing too big! They were amazing...we sat and watched them for a good 15 or 20 minutes. After that, we ran into a sea turtle surfacing for air...it was soo neat! We just had an all around great night dive.

All of the guys on board the boat have said that they love diving Wheeler Reef at night because it always makes for an exciting night dive! Once we were back on the boat and dried off, we were standing around watching all of the squid (about a foot long) hanging out around the boat...I am assuming they were attracted to the light...it was so neat. We also managed to see a sea snake glide up next to the side of the boat...perhaps he was attracted to the light as well!

On our second day, we swam around and saw more coral and things. On our first dive, about probably a good 50 feet away (including both height and length) we saw a shovelnose ray. If you don't know what it is...it is very cool...it has a similar body shape to a sawnose ray, only it doesn't have the long snout with teeth...it just has a triangular shaped head. On our last dive of the trip, we swam up more toward the reef flats...so most of the dive we were in about 12 to 20 feet of water. Here we saw another white tip reef shark. We spent about ten minutes or so with him...he let us get within a good 3 feet of him before swimming off to find a place just a bit away from us. He was resting on the bottom during this time. It was very neat...check out the photos in my album!

Overall, it was the most amazing experience...we had a great time in the two days of diving and living on the Kalinda. Our ride back to Townsville was much nicer than the ride out. We had beautiful weather for the way back, making a smooth ride home!

This week I have been doing a lot of study and research. I have about 4 papers due in the next 3 weeks...lots to do! But I wanted to get this information posted to you. I hope all is well for everyone...I promise to write more again soon, but I need to get busy studying!

Until next time,

Krissy
xoxo