Snorkeling and Diving on the Great Barrier Reef
Queensland, Australia - November 2001
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| All of the underwater shots you see here were taken while snorkeling, not scuba diving. (I wasn't sure if my underwater camera bag was rated far enough.) | Okay... giant clams... and they're not kidding! One and a half meters in length! | |
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| It was clear that a small person could crawl into some of the empty ones we saw! | ||
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| Yup. Shark. We saw turtles too but I never got a shot. Actually, I think I saw a turtle below me here first, came up to get Kris's attention, and then saw two of these below. (Time to head back over to the coral....) | ||
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| While most of us required tanks on our backs to stay down at length (ya'know, that whole breathing air thing), one of our guides, Scott, would free dive and cruise around with the scuba divers at the bottom for amazing lengths of time. | ||
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| Land! | It was so cool to stand on this little tiny sand bar surrounded by nothing but ocean in every direction! | |
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| Monica and Diana came back from their introductory dive with such enthusiasm (not to mention still breathing) that I managed to talk myself into giving it a try... | The intro dive is very easy. They take complete care of you: setting up your gear, controlling your buoyancy, watching your oxygen, etc. (I must admit to checking it quite often on my own!) Nice hair, huh? | All you really have to deal with is learning to equalize the pressure in your head. (Hold your nose and blow!) |
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| You also go through a couple of exercises of removing your regulator and mask underwater so that you don't panic if you should somehow knock them off while you're down deep. | Hey look! I survived! And it was a blast! I went for a second intro dive the next day. I'm definitely going to look into getting certified. | Only trouble was after my 2nd scuba dive: I went immediately snorkeling, dove down, exhaled, and was just about to breath in before remembering that I wasn't carrying a tank anymore! (I kicked for the surface and proceeded to smack myself in the head.) |
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