Well, here are my impressions with reference to my log. Haven't uploaded any photos yet - need to retrieve the discs from work.
Got to Cairns on 14 Dec - met a few fellow divers while waiting for a taxi, and we soon worked out we were all joining the Nimrod so we hooked up and got a minibus. After arriving at the office we were given a quick briefing, then driven out to the airport to join the charter flight. Low level flight to Cooktown was amazing! Reef and rainforest, mountains and sea. Dumped our gear on the deck when we got to the Nimrod and they dropped us back into town for a few quick last minute beers - the cast of characters in the pub could have come straight out of movie set. Introduced European guests to several types of Aussie beer.
I was set up with three girls from Hong Kong - snug but comfortable cabin. Somehow we all managed to dance around each other for the week and got along famously - I had a porthole, so that helped prompt me to get up well before the morning call most mornings. They buddied me up with one of the blokes I shared the cab from the airport with - we were well matched for air consumption and interests, and were both doing the Nitrox course, so it worked well. We were requested to be back on board by 70 minutes for most dives (and pushed that limit more than once!). Max depth was a bit shy of 40 metres out at North Horn.
Boat was comfortable. Liked the saloon so much that I fell asleep in there one night after dinner and nearly spent the night, until I realised I needed to get the contact lenses out (getting into my top bunk without kicking one of my cabin mates in the face in the dark was a whole other story!) Crew were sensational - Mike the engineer is a marine biologist, and able to answer just about any obscure question we threw at him. I did my nitrox certification on board, and Jon was great...even one night when the boat was pitching a bit and I was knackered and cranky, he still worked through it patiently with me. Food was good too - not elaborate, but plentiful. Can still hear the cook chuckling over serving trifle the night almost everyone was seasick ('this'll fix you right up!').
There was only afternoon-evening when most people seemed to be a bit queasy - I'm virtually never seasick, but on this day I had to get in the water to get rid of the upset stomach. I was fine the rest of the trip, and even partook of the trifle!
Quick rundown on sites - you would have come across most of these before in write-ups, so I'll try to keep it brief:
15.12.04 - Pixie Pinnacle. Spiralled around pinnacle to surface. Barracuda, lots of trevally, maori wrasse, tomato clownfish, flute fish, lionfish, unicornfish etc etc...Did this for dives 1 - 2
- Vertical Gardens - Dive on outer reef. Good arawy of hard corals
- Challenger Bay / Monolith - Couple of sharks - Blacktip and a whitetip reefshark on
patrol. Also did Night dive here - most remarkable thing was schooling trevally at night, both giant and bluefin.
16.12.04 - Raging Horn, Osprey Reef. This is what it's all about - lots of grey whalers (grey reefsharks) slipping in and out of vision, and plenty of white tip reefsharks lazing on the bottom.
Fake Entry, Osprey Reef. Series of gutters with lots of WT reefsharks - which seemed absolutely unconcerned by my cautious approach and photographing. Also caught sight of a dog-tooth tuna.
Raging Horn. Done as a drift dive from boat, but there was very little current. More white tips. Turtle. Moray freeswimming.
Castle - Osprey Reef. Swim throughs, lots of bommies, caves and grottos. Field of Garden Eels. WT reefsharsk. Lots of anenomefish and some magnifica anenomes.
17.12.04 - Admiralty - Osprey Reef. Wall dive. Spent forever at about 25 metres watching Garden Eels! More (inevitable) white tips.
North Horn - Osprey Reef. More sharks than you could poke a stick at. Always at least eight grey whalers in sight, plus lots of white tips. Maori wrasse and remoras everywhere - some of which came in and attached themselves to us. At the end we got to the mooring line and spent about 15 minutes surrounded by them - great stuff!
North Horn - Osprey Reef. 'Shark Attraction'. Fish scraps were placed in a cage to attract sharks. Plenty of them (I have photos in which about 30 at a time can be counted). What I really fell in love with here were the potato cod! I'd never understood their charm until this time when I actually dove with them. Was jostled from behind, and whipped around to glare at whatever diver it was who was so uncontrolled - found myself face to face with one of these big lugs. One swam right between my fins as I looked down to watch a free-swimming moray.
Halfway Wall - Osprey Reef. Bit of wall, mainly bommies. Nice swimthroughs. More white tips.
18.12.05 - Andy's postcard - Ribbon Reef 5. Bommies, sandy bottom.
Steve's Bommie - Ribbon Reef 3. Two dives. Steve had excellent taste! It's shrouded in clouds of yellow fish, both wrasse and snapper. Anthias galore. At least three species of anenomefish, battalions of fusiliers, barracuda, turtles.
Temple of Doom - Night dive.
19.12.04 - Century Bay. Sandy bottom. More WTR sharks and garden eels, blue spotted rays, cuttlefish.
Joanies Joy - Sandy bottom, coral heads. Coral gardens near surface. Most confident shrimp goby and shrimp I've ever seen - my close proximity didn't phase them at all.
Any Question - Ribbon Reef 2. No notes! Never got around to writing it up.
Kremlin -I was a bit cold this dive, going twilight to night. Saw lots of chromises. Very pretty coral gardens on top of the bommie. And a solitary batfish!
Sorry about the long laundrylist, but hopefully it will give you an idea of what you may see. Because it was spring, we saw a lot of juvenile fish and spawning sea cucumbers. Would have loved a manta or two, but not to be! A group of us had dinner and drinks at the Green Ant the night we got back in - and I found they had Absinthe, so it was all good!
