Great Barrier Reef

I'm happy to report that the Great Barrier Reef is still there and Coral bleaching has decreased in the last two years according to our Dive Center.  When the ocean water temperature reaches above 30 degrees, the algae inside the coral dies which in turn kills the coral and turns them white.  I was happy to hear, the bleaching has slowed down.  So keep up the good work on decreasing global warming people!!

Just a small part of the reef  as seen from the plane

25 January 2019, I did two dives while the boys did three.  We used the Silver Series Dive Centre and have no complaints. Our Dive Master, Gordon was great.

Dive 1. Escape.

My max depth was 18.5 m with a total bottom time of 48 minutes. Highlights of this dive was a cute little cuttlefish hanging out at the anchor area.  Also, a white tip reef shark lurking in the shadows.  I did well equalizing my ears with just minimal discomfort.  I did take one sudafed tablet an hour prior to diving.  It was raining hard when we first jumped in. The 48 minutes went by so fast!  While we were down there, we could tell some of the clouds cleared because the colors were more vibrant.

Trenton on the right foreground checking out the cuttlefish on the block

Dive 2. Chapel. I normally don't do the 2nd dive.  Either my ears hurt or I'm too tired, but I think the excitement of being in the GBR really helped.  Maximum depth 17.2 m, dive time 39 minutes.

The highlight of this dive was a cute little clownfish swimming in an anemone. Unfortunately, I broke the rule by not telling anyone, so nobody else got to see it.
Another highlight is when we climbed through this skinny gorge surrounded by coral. When I was climbing, I swam along with a school of tiny purple fishes and a couple big fish, too. This really tested my buoyancy to avoid hitting any outcroppings above or break off the beautiful fan coral that jutted into the opening.

At the end of our dive, the underwater photographer met up with us and took pictures.  Later when we looked at all the different professional photographs,  I decided I looked like a freak in all of them.  Brian was happy that my underwater self is not very photogenic and I'm saving him lots of money by not buying the pictures.

Following the anchor line up to the boat

Dive 3.  Pavona.

I sat out this dive.  Brian and Trenton did it.

This is a drift dive, so we dropped off the divers and the boat took off to meet them at the end.
The highlight for them were two grey reef sharks. clown fish with baby nemo. and Pavona the giant potato coral.  Picture a giant pile of potatoes that have just been dumped onto the bottom of the Pacific Ocean by a few 18 wheelers.

While the boys did their dive, Spencer and I snorkeled and practiced our free diving.

My overall experience diving the Great Barrier Reef was just ok.  A few reasons for this lukewarm reaction.

1.  Maybe I built it up too much in my head

2.  Apparently, it's rainy season, so we didn't get the colors popping as much as I expected

3.  The number of cool creatures we spotted was few and far between.  I expected more, but it might be the sites we visited didn't happen to have as many that day.  So, I'm going to chalk that up to a timing issue.

In conclusion, I will definitely have to dive GBR again when it's not rainy season so I can give it a second chance, and hopefully a better review.