| Holmes Reef aboard the Rumrunner out of Cairns |  19th-22nd October 1999
This was a great diving trip to the outer Great Barrier Reef, with friends Tyronne Canning (Pro Dive Tour Leader)and Peter Skor. I first met Tyrone on the Fair Princess diving the Glen McWilliam in Vavua harbour in Tonga in June 1998. Tyrone is truely one of a kind and this trip was a blast. Peter I have been diving with in Santo Vanuatu diving the President Cooledge and also the Solomon Islands, as well as many weekends away.
The trip required motoring all night from Cairns Harbour to arrive at the reef ready to dive at 9am in the morning. It was a rough ride after an afternoon down the pub all tanked up on beer and scotch. Peter was quite sick and had thrown up quite a few times during the night, I also went out to throw up in sympathy about 2:00am, the sea was quite rough. But by the time we got to the reef the sea was flat and we had some great diving.
In the picture from left to right me, unknown, Tyrone, Peter |
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Other Galleries
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| Day 1 |  Nonki - this is a pinnacle start the dive at 30 metres and swim spiral around and around the pinnacle gradually decreasing your depth. Check out the caves and go through the swim through near the top. Beautiful large gorgonian fans. Viz 40 meters +.
Amazing - Incredible swim throughs, white tip reef sharks, parrot fish galore.
Turtle Grave Yard day dive - More swim throughs and caves, viz was a little worse here only 30 meters.
Turtle Grave Yard night dive - hermit crabs, Its a bit daunting running into the reef sharks the first thing you see are the green eyes approaching from a distance.
In the picture - Peter Skor |
| Day 2 |  The Abyss - Wall dive its a long way down we got 45 meters and all you see is dark blue to black looking down. Peter had to eat a table spoon of vegemite for exceeding the limit of 40 meters for the dive. I just told them I did 40 meters. Caves and canyons between 3 to 6 meters from the surface excellent way to do your safety stop.
The Cathedral - Most interesting between 5 to 12 meters. Channels carved by fresh water when the sea level was down eons ago when there was once land.
Barro Point - Plenty of fish action here in a strong current, where's my reef hook when I need one.
Predators Playground - The shark feed this is where they burley up the water and feed the sharks. Incredible but couldn't get any good shots of the feeding frenzy too much back scatter from my MX10. Its an experience to see a feeding frenzy overhead and have sharks swimming all around you. I had this experience once before in Vanuatu its incredible.
In the picture is me, there are sharks swimming about somewhere :) |
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