On arriving on Taka, my home for the next 5 days, I met the rest of the guests - my roomates Toliver (from California but now living in Tokyo and working as a computer programmer for YouTube) and; Matsuski (a Japanese lady in her 60s, but who could have passed for 40!); my dive buddy Matthew (from Bishops Storkford); Lukas (white Armani suit wearing, slightly crazy guy from Czech); 3 Japanese guys; a Mexican couple (Carl and Fernanda); a French couple; and a couple of Indian guys. It was an interesting group of people and really nice to spend some time with some older people after all the 18-30 backpackers! The boat crew were a mixture of English, Japanese, Ozzie, German and Kiwi and were all good fun. We soon left Cairns behind, motoring north overnight to arrive early the following morning at the Cod Hole, close to Lizard Island on Ribbon Reef No 10.

For our first dive Matthew and I decided to go with a guide and we were rewarded with a very inquisitive cod who hung around us for ages. The second dive that day was the cod feed. We all knelt in a circle and the dive leader, Jon, came around each of us releasing pilchards into the water which the cod greedily gobbled up. When it was my turn a rather enthusiastic cod hit me around the head - they're pretty powerful! It was quite an eye opener and a great experience. Continuing our dive after the cod feed we spotted a white tip shark resting on the sea bed. Something about sharks and Australia was a bit scary, but this one seemed very mellow. Unbelievably, Matthew also saw a manta ray which somehow I missed! A pretty incredible first dive site. From there it was onto Pixie's bommie (a coral pinnacle between the ribbon reefs) which was teeming with fish - really pretty and the final dive of the day, a night dive. The night dive was probably the most disconcerting night dive I have ever done as the illumination of the torch under water attracted sharks and big trevally which used the torch light to hunt off. Somehow the white tip sharks which looked so placid earlier in the day were not quite so mellow at night when they were hunting! Again, a fish got a bit disorientated and swam into me (I think Matthew must have been shining his torch on me and they thought I was dinner or something!)

Sunday was the most spellbinding diving I have ever done. We motored all night out to the Osprey Reef (now about 120 miles from Cairns). On entry into the water from the boat we could immediately see why this place was so special. The water was so clear, the visability must have been about 80 meters. We did a good first dive along the reef wall appreciating the big blue and the sharks patrolling the water. With the water being so incredibly clear it was very easy to go deeper than you thought you were and I naughtily went down to 31m (when the rules on the boat were to only go down to 30m). We were all incredibly excited about the second dive of the day, the real highlight of the trip, being the shark feed. Tuna heads were attached to a line which was then gradually released from a dustbin whilst we all watched in awe perched around a natural auditorium on the reef. It was incredible to watch the white-tip, black-tip and even the big silver-tips go in for the attack. There was another potato cod there and he really didn't take any prisoners when it came to the last bit of food on the line! After getting a bit too overexcited I managed to stay too deep for too long and went into decompression. No big drama as all it meant was that I needed to do more safety stops on the way up. Unfortunately, it did mean no more diving for the day as Taka didn't permit the guests to go into deco. On surfacing I was not the only one. Somehow Matthew had just managed to stay out, but Matsuski had also gone into deco and hadn't done the required safety stops. Unfortuntately, she was not permitted to dive any more for the rest of the trip. Instead of wasting my day I snorkled on the reef whilst the others were diving. The snorkling at the first place after lunch was amazing and I think that I probably saw more than many people ever see diving! The top of the reef was really shallow so I don't think that I missed anything too much.

The final couple of days were more diving back on the ribbon reefs and then on the way back to Cairns. Another highlight was Steve's Bommie on which we dove twice. The quantity of fish there, particularly around the top, was incredible. The preying-mantis shrimp we found there, next to Nemo, was such a comedy creature, I could have watched him for hours. We did another night dive which was much less nervewracking than the first, but we really didn't see much. Following the night dive we also watched the DVD of the trip. Of course, I had to buy it! The trip may have totally blown my budget, but it was one of the best things that I have done in Australia and I would recommend it to anyone who's got the stamina to do all those dives in such a short space of time. Good job that the food was amazing and that there was so much of it!!!