Keepin track of Kezza: Out to Osprey

Day 3, Monday, April 23rd:

Steamed out to Osprey Reef overnight. A bit of a rough trip to say the least. Wasn't going to take the seasick pills because I didn't think they were working, but got scared into it by the crew. 15min later I'm puking. After that I felt great though and I decide it must be the pills and stop taking them. After that I have no more problems and don't even feel slightly nausious on the boat. Actually I enjoy the rocking! Stupid sea sick pills. I guess they aren't kidding when they say "Side effects include nausia".

Osprey Reef is not actually technically part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park... its farther out into the Coral Sea and we were definitely the only boat around. Pretty cool. Look it up on google earth if you're bored. The first dive we did was at Admiralty Anchor, which had this cool "swim-through" which is basically just a short cave. Well maybe not that short... it did take a few minutes to get through and was pretty narrow in some parts. It's pretty crazy caving underwater, I must say.

This is me coming out of the cave. If you look close you can see David emerging underneath/behind me.

David coming out of the cave

Anemone fish!

A shark sucker on the bottom of the ladder. They usually stick to sharks.

Second dive was at a different part of Osprey Reef where a lot of sharks hang out. Saw a few white tips like this guy, as well as some grey reef sharks.

Jap, Engineer extraordanaire and Emily the Iron Chef!

Dive three was at Cobalt Caves, which had LOTS of swim-throughs. David and I followed Clare, one of the instructors, which was pretty fun. Every so often she would find a little cave opening and give us the underwater sign for "Lets check this out... I have no idea where it goes, but who cares?" Sometimes we would come out the other end, othertimes we would have to turn around. It was pretty crazy knowing that even our guide had no idea where we would end up! But it was always exciting when we would make it through the other side!

So since the whole idea of this dive boat operation is to use tourist dollars to help fund research, it would make sense that the marine biologists on board carry out some research that the tourists get to partipate in/watch. One of their main projects is catching and tagging nautilus. Nautilus are these crazy funky cephalopods that live in deep waters usually... 200+meters deep. I won the draw to go out on the little boat and help Chris the Marine Bio and resident Crazy-British-dick-joke-makin-always-posing-for-the-camera guy, put out the nautilus trap...

Sorry for the sideways pic...I'm too tired to fix it. This is me all bundled up cause I have finally showered and changed into dry clothes for the first time all day and I don't want to get too wet on the little boat.