After the three days in Sydney, we headed up to Townsville to get
ready for our dive trip. We were on a live aboard boat operated by
Mike Ball. The boat could hold 29 people, but only 21 signed up. We
had air-conditioning problems that were pretty bad the first night
and 4 people got off, so we only had 17 people. The problems with the
air-con were not really too bad, though it did get hot when meals
were being cooked.
The Spoil Sport.
It's a dual hold boat (catamaran) with 4
levels : a sun deck on top; then the kitchen, dining room and lounge
area; then the dive deck and passenger cabins; and at the very
bottom, the crew quarters and engineering. We really had a great time
and the crew and other passengers were a lot of fun.
On of the places we visited was a sand cay.
Basically just a beach coming above the surface of the water where
birds and turtles lay their eggs.
The birds and observation deck on
the sand cay
These two were defending their eggs
pretty aggressively.
We were on the boat over the New Year, so there was a good party
atmosphere on the boat for a lot of the time. There was even a
midnight dive on New Year's Eve that included a bottle of champagne.
The crew dressed to party.
The cook on the right helping with
the festive atmosphere.
Speaking of the cook, we want to make sure if he or anyone who
knows him is reading this, the food was GREAT. There was always a ton
to eat and he was able to do wonders with the little he had to work
with. Even when the freezer defrosted on the second to last day, a
couple of crew went fishing and we had fresh fish and lobster for
dinner.
Keith playing Scrabble with the
Foster's
We kept ourselves pretty well entertained playing Scrabble and Uno
and reading several books.
Hmm...
Must be a good hand
Australian beer and Uno
Magnetic fishing contests against
the crew
One of the dives we did was a shark feeding. We hope to get our
Underwater photos scanned and online soon so you can see more, but
these are a few good shots from the surface.
The crew preparing the bin full of
tuna
We all got in the water and swam over to the shark cages. There
were sharks circling us the whole time. We laid on top of the cages
and the dive master brought the bin of tuna by each of us to attract
the sharks. The sharks were mostly gray reef sharks, with a few
silver tips and a couple white tips. Then we got inside the cages and
the dive master used a pulley system to open the bin of tuna and the
sharks went nuts. The water clouded up with bits of fish and sand for
a couple of minutes while the sharks shredded the tuna. Pretty cool -
the pictures will be up in the dive photos section soon.
After the dive, one of the crew used a hemp rope tied to tuna
tails to "fish" for sharks.
Two sharks hanging on
A big one won't let go
Look at that mouth!
Jill ready to dive
Check out those cool fish
tattoos!
Joe, the dive mistress (trip
boss)
Joe giving us the farewell
speech
The passengers
Most of the crew (thanks,
guys)
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