An early start of 5am! It's hard to get ready and pack for the day with 2 asleep people in your room in the dark! I then drove all the way to Cairns in the dark. It took us a while but we found a car park near the marina. It was really raining and overcast and we were slipping on the wooden jetty! We arrived on finger 'E' and found our boat. Everyone was standing outside getting soaked like randomers. I had my waterproof but Garth was getting soaked just I just jumped on board and asked if we could get on early as it was raining and they let us on! ;)

We were given sting suites, flippers and snorkel mask, and sat down at the back of the boat (which I learnt from whale watching in Kaikoura). I was having regrets about not having an underwater camera or a GoPro for The Great Barrier Reef, so we hired an underwater camera for $45 with which we could insert our SD card so they would be with all our other pictures (this time last week I would have panicked about his, but as we had backed them up at Darren's, I wasn't worried). The camera guy on board was called RICO and was French...but was very friendly and approachable! He set it all up for us and kept the camera in a bucket of water at the back of the boat to prevent misting up of the screen.

The staff highly recommended taking a sea sickness tablet as the weather was bad, so we spent $4 on 2 tablets and took one each (Garth shouldn't have on his beta blockers) which I believed helped a lot as it was VERY CHOPPY! There were white horses everywhere and they got very big at points! I don't think the captain was driving into the waves as they sometimes hit the sides quite hard which felt very unstable. The inside was material seats and was supposed to be a 'dry area' where no sting suites allowed etc but it smelt of damp (reminded me of England) so they kept the door at the front open for ventilation. However, at one of the 'choppy' points the captain aimed badly and this wave crashed upon the front of the boat, and you could see it coming through the window, and the crew member a the door could also see it coming, but didn't have time to close the door, so he leant out in bliss and let this huge wave roll over the boat, roll over him and into the 'dry' boat. The screams were very entertaining. The crew member took it like a champ but was utterly drenched. It was very funny, quite shocking and also slightly worrying that the weather was a bit too extreme for diving the reef...

However, as we approached the reef it calmed down. It was still very overcast and raining, and still choppy with white horses, but not at the same highs and extremity as before! We arrived at dive site one (in the middle of nowhere!!!!) where they gave us a brief briefing before jumping in off the back of the boat! (Please note that our sting suits had not dried out since their last outing and putting on a wet, skin tight suite was an experience I would not wish on anyone). So we got ready, grabbed the camera and jumped off the back of a boat in the middle of the Coral Sea. It was initially cold, but far more petrifying!!!! We couldn't see anything underwater apart from sea dust. From the boat we could see the reef, but once in the water it was VERY FAR AWAY... I've watched too many shark films...

However, we eventually arrived at the reef! It was less colourful than I had expected. Only slightly more colourful than the reef in Fiji with more variety in species. The fish were quite amazing though! There were thousands of mini colourful fish around me at every moment, but there were many larger fish as well. Notably, there were many fish up to 1 meter long that were rainbow coloured just nipping the coral around us and not particularly bothered by us, which we were able to swim very close too. The things which stood out to me, were the coral that was not only larger than me, but had mini hairs that swayed with every wave. The coral that had long green hair that swayed with the waves and some darks black coral that looked really wired. There was huge red coral in the shape of leaves despite being underwater! All of the larger fish seemed to spend their time on the outside of the reef, which seemed very natural under the water but I did occasionally have my doubts about a sharks accessibility to those areas...

RICO immersed from the depths and handed us a Cairns license plate for under water photos, which was a very fun ideas, but with the waves sweeping us in any direction and the coral very close, it was very hard work! It made me appreciate how with any photography or video, you become experts in certain areas and that needs to be respected and takes many years of practice! Even with weddings!

The stormy conditions above mean that snorkelling was rather hard. A wave splashing over my snorkel not only meant a lung full of salt water but moments of panic, which meant disorientation with relation to the coral. I knew the fish would get out of my way, but it shocked me into realisation that any old idiot can do this, and that Its is actually very potentially damaging to the reef... The amount of salt water that I had swallowed was pretty crazy in hind sight. I would have loved to have known grandpa George to hear this stories and knowledge on such sea circumstances! After half an hour I got quite cold. We took a break on the back of the boat, but the Camera misted up then so I didn't stay much longer as the camera was a big reason to stay on the reef (where a shark could eat me and where I was drinking sea water)!

I was back on the boat before Garth and had to go up to the 'sun' lounge to take off my sting suit to dry whilst we had lunch. I saw Garth was the lt to swim back to the boat and was cool to see him swim out on the barrier reef from such a height.

Lunch was actually lovely with fresh salad and meat, however, it wasn't long until we were at our second dive site, so my tummy was quite unsettled on this second dive, however, I was determined to make the most of our last dive! We had to get back into our horrible cold and wet sting suits (although at least we knew it was our own wet this time) and swim the dreaded 'blind' 50 mets from the bat to the reef. The current felt much stronger this time. I couldn't help but think how distressing it was getting a wave and an unexpected mouth full of water with a small current and wave, how much more crazy and incomprehensible it must be to be bitten by a shark on top of all of this....(like I said before - I've watched too many movies).

The second dive was better as I was more determined and slightly more used to the crazy waves on the surface. The tide (I'm not sure there is a tide out at sea???) had seemed to have gone down a lot, and actually swimming OVER the reef was a bit of a no go at this point as we would potentially damage the reef with the crazy waves. There were numerous times where I was swimming on the edge of the reef and a wave swept me back over the reef and I had to swim away from it. This made it very hard to manoeuvre as well a breathe!!!!

Garth and I were causally swimming around the edge, Garth was loving the reef, and I was occasionally looking into the deep blue nothing for sharks, when I saw this Giant Turtle approach me from the nothing. At first I thought Garth could not miss this, when I turned around and saw that he was, so I hit him and he turned to see. Turtle was like in slow motion, very elegant and chilled out. He was much wider than me, but not longer. I followed him for 10 meters or so in awe and trying to get a photo. I soon realised I was in easy shark territory and headed back to the reef, where all the fellow divers were in a frenzy heading back out, so I followed (unable to communicate) only to see another Giant turtle - this one missing a back leg. It surfaced to take in some air, and I surfaced with it - I will never forget being above the water with the turtles head sticking out looking at nothing but choppy ocean towards our boat and then diving under to see the turtle swim away. I wonder what other animals were so close to our boat but not noticed....

Garth was soon tiring after this and headed back to the boat. The crazy stormy water was taking its toll on my as well, but I was determined to get ace photos so I kept on going until the battery ran out....then a large wave hit me and I got mega disorientated and too close to the coral so I headed back to the boat, in awe, but also glad to have survived the crazy conditions!!!

I gladly got changed and slept the choppy 2 hour ride back to Cairns (although not nearly as choppy as the way out). It was still heavily raining when we got back. Garth drove back to Port Douglas and I chilled. What a crazy, amazing and memorable day!!!!!