Great Barrier Reef Taka style
Some of the highlights for the trip.
Potato Cod was and cod feeding was pretty cool. There was three pretty big cod's coming for lunch and yes, we all got our pictures as it seemed it was the papparazzi's day off. Everyone had their camera's shooting mad. No worries I got few of my own.
Steve's Bommie. What is a bommie? Was my 1st question, apparently it has roots in aborginal (Turkulainen, in Finnish) language, meaning a formation of some sort. Bigger than pinnacle, basically a wide tower coming for the seafloor. All the pinnacles and Bommies we saw where abundant with life! Good places to burn few megs of memory card.
Red Bass and light of god. During the nightdive in Challenger Bay my cavelight was used for hunting by Red Bass. If I lighted up a poor little fishie swimming around, it took about 5 seconds for a big ass bass to come behind and above my head to eat the sucker. I usually vouch for the weaker one, so I gave some back by lighting a fish near hard corals and removing the light just before the bass was able to do the catch. I makes quite a big noise when bass is swimming full speed to a coral because it can't see anymore. Don't be so keen on the light was the lesson. Quite impressive though, because they clearly had leaned to hunt with the diving light. I was able to draw a school the fish that just followed my light.
Last night dive at Beer Garden I think we missed the 'turtle bay' and did not find it. We where luckly as on our way back we saw a big turtle hiding under a rock. I guess he liked my light as he tagged on for about ten minutes and followed us back towards the boat. At one point he was just about a meter above my head, I didn't see him go there at all. After a while I think it got bored and left.
Taka boat is build to a tunafishing boat specs which makes it very seaworthy. The diving deck works really well and they have a ramp which can be lowered down to collect divers back from the dive. Very easy to get onto. Showers and other facilities are adequate and you did not have to wait for very long to get a quick warm shower after the dive. There was few extra costs AUD75 for fuel and Reef tax, AUD105 for 32% for all my dives (13 in all). Not too bad. Dives in general where limited by the 'boat rules' to 50 minutes and night dives to 40. Our average depths where quite shallow around +=10m, so we could have done a bit longer ones, but hey.
My dive buddy was a lovely Japanese lady, Naoko or Nao for short. We had a good time diving and checking out the sites. She is a good diver and we where always the first ones to splash (unless I was sitting the loo, reading a book). Her SAC was less than mine, we basically set our planning to my consumption. I think it was because she was about 1/2 of my size and I'm not a man-mountain myself. Too bad she did not make it to our farewell dinner on Tuesday night. So Nao, when you read this, I hope you think you should have, haha. Anyway, thanks for the diving! I will visit Japan one of these days. George, beware!
Potato Cod was and cod feeding was pretty cool. There was three pretty big cod's coming for lunch and yes, we all got our pictures as it seemed it was the papparazzi's day off. Everyone had their camera's shooting mad. No worries I got few of my own.
Steve's Bommie. What is a bommie? Was my 1st question, apparently it has roots in aborginal (Turkulainen, in Finnish) language, meaning a formation of some sort. Bigger than pinnacle, basically a wide tower coming for the seafloor. All the pinnacles and Bommies we saw where abundant with life! Good places to burn few megs of memory card.
Red Bass and light of god. During the nightdive in Challenger Bay my cavelight was used for hunting by Red Bass. If I lighted up a poor little fishie swimming around, it took about 5 seconds for a big ass bass to come behind and above my head to eat the sucker. I usually vouch for the weaker one, so I gave some back by lighting a fish near hard corals and removing the light just before the bass was able to do the catch. I makes quite a big noise when bass is swimming full speed to a coral because it can't see anymore. Don't be so keen on the light was the lesson. Quite impressive though, because they clearly had leaned to hunt with the diving light. I was able to draw a school the fish that just followed my light.
Last night dive at Beer Garden I think we missed the 'turtle bay' and did not find it. We where luckly as on our way back we saw a big turtle hiding under a rock. I guess he liked my light as he tagged on for about ten minutes and followed us back towards the boat. At one point he was just about a meter above my head, I didn't see him go there at all. After a while I think it got bored and left.
Taka boat is build to a tunafishing boat specs which makes it very seaworthy. The diving deck works really well and they have a ramp which can be lowered down to collect divers back from the dive. Very easy to get onto. Showers and other facilities are adequate and you did not have to wait for very long to get a quick warm shower after the dive. There was few extra costs AUD75 for fuel and Reef tax, AUD105 for 32% for all my dives (13 in all). Not too bad. Dives in general where limited by the 'boat rules' to 50 minutes and night dives to 40. Our average depths where quite shallow around +=10m, so we could have done a bit longer ones, but hey.
My dive buddy was a lovely Japanese lady, Naoko or Nao for short. We had a good time diving and checking out the sites. She is a good diver and we where always the first ones to splash (unless I was sitting the loo, reading a book). Her SAC was less than mine, we basically set our planning to my consumption. I think it was because she was about 1/2 of my size and I'm not a man-mountain myself. Too bad she did not make it to our farewell dinner on Tuesday night. So Nao, when you read this, I hope you think you should have, haha. Anyway, thanks for the diving! I will visit Japan one of these days. George, beware!
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