By 06:30 we were in the water for our first dive of the day at Gordons Mooring on Flynn reef. All of the dives today were without guides. I had the use of a Sea & Sea underwater camera with a through the lens strobe. Well, it is a lot harder than you can imagine to take a picture underwater! I don't have much confidence in my photos! However, as soon as we descended Ian found an octopus of which two shots were taken. We saw parrotfish, dart gobies, red wrasse, trumpetfish, anemonefish, corals, sea slugs [Editors Note: flat worms], sea cucumber, humbug damsels, butterflyfish, angelfish and a titan triggerfish.
For the second dive I had the camera again but with an additional macro lens for close up photographs. This time we dived at Tracys Bommie on Flynn reef and found I was a bit more careful with the composition of photographs. It is still very difficult 'though! We saw trumpetfish, anemonefish, sea slugs [Editors Note: flat worms], butterflyfish, titan triggerfish, hunbug damsels. I have a bit more confidence in the second roll of film. My buddy was excellent in finding subjects for me to shoot while I was taking shots of other finds and we both felt that there was a real purpose to the dive and as a result found it more interesting. After I ran out of film on our return to the boat I found a cuttlefish in all its glory watching us watching him and I was totally gutted that my film had expired.
Our final dive, again at Tracys Bommie on Flynn reef, was spent in the shallows watching blue and yellow christmas tree worms, giant clams and a jellyfish with a single tentacle with red spots on it, orange lined triggerfish, rock cod, a single flat worm moving across a coral, a indian coral grouper and a honeycomb grouper. Towards the end of the dive when we were doing our safety stop I took out my regulator and gave Ian a big bubbly smile underwater. On embarking the boat, Scuba Pro II, a fellow diver, Carol, was quick to inform us that we missed a white tip reef shark that saw us and swam away.
Having collected my two rolls of film from the Pro Dive shop we returned to the Cairns Central YHA and collected Roy, our hire car, before making progress south towards Townsville. En route I booked us on the day trip to SS Yongala where we will do two wreck dives on Sunday. That was we can completely desaturate tomorrow before diving again.
We had a McDonalds at Ingham on the way south where mosquitoes took to my feet and feasted. After squishing cane toads on the road we arrived in Townsville at 21:00. We crashed immediately as we were so tired. We had driven a distance of 351 kilometres from Cairns to Townsville.
Earlier I remarked to Ian that I would like to be reincarnated as either an anemonefish or a blue and yellow christmas tree worm.
Copyright 2003 Helen Fuller. All rights reserved.