Today's dives included more sites along Ribbon Reef 10: Lighthouse Bommie, Pixie Pinnacle and Pixie Gardens. We started the day off at 7:15am for our dive brief at Lighthouse Bommie where we did a deep dive to 88 feet, about 40 feet deeper than John has ever been. This was a required dive for the Advanced Open Water Course which we both completed on board the dive boat. It was fun to do the class, just required some book work between our dives, but gets us to the next level of certification in the PADI dive system. We are extremely well taken care of on the dive boat, there's always a dive before breakfast, a dive or two before lunch, a couple dives before dinner, and sometimes a night dive. In addition to the amazing underwater views and warm 81F water, the dive luxuries provided really put the icing on the cake. When diving, we breathe completely dry air from the tank (prevents corrosion inside the tank) which can be hard on your mouth/throat when you're used to 50-80% humidity air. So on the dive deck, the dive crew always has glasses of water and orange wedges ready for you as you de-gear. Also, there are personalized dry towels available after every dive, and fresh water showers to rinse off the salt. It's a far cry from beach diving in Monterey in 50F water, and having to carry 50 pounds of lead weight plus 50 pounds of dive gear 200 yards to/from the beach. Both Lighthouse Bommie and Pixie Pinnacle are huge (60-70 foot) pillars of coral, which are amazing to dive and slow circle as you come up to the surface. They are teeming with wildlife, as you can see in the attached picture of Pixie Pinnacle. Today, the coolest thing we saw was a 7-foot long sea snake. It's incredible how it moves through the water, but John was pretty disconcerted as he remembers from the Discovery Channel that the Australian sea snake is the #1 most poisonous snake in the world...regardless of the fact that it's generally considered non-dangerous to humans. The sea snake we saw came within 4 feet of our group, not really paying any heed to us, but close enough to get our heart rates up pretty good.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Bommies and Pixies
Today's dives included more sites along Ribbon Reef 10: Lighthouse Bommie, Pixie Pinnacle and Pixie Gardens. We started the day off at 7:15am for our dive brief at Lighthouse Bommie where we did a deep dive to 88 feet, about 40 feet deeper than John has ever been. This was a required dive for the Advanced Open Water Course which we both completed on board the dive boat. It was fun to do the class, just required some book work between our dives, but gets us to the next level of certification in the PADI dive system. We are extremely well taken care of on the dive boat, there's always a dive before breakfast, a dive or two before lunch, a couple dives before dinner, and sometimes a night dive. In addition to the amazing underwater views and warm 81F water, the dive luxuries provided really put the icing on the cake. When diving, we breathe completely dry air from the tank (prevents corrosion inside the tank) which can be hard on your mouth/throat when you're used to 50-80% humidity air. So on the dive deck, the dive crew always has glasses of water and orange wedges ready for you as you de-gear. Also, there are personalized dry towels available after every dive, and fresh water showers to rinse off the salt. It's a far cry from beach diving in Monterey in 50F water, and having to carry 50 pounds of lead weight plus 50 pounds of dive gear 200 yards to/from the beach. Both Lighthouse Bommie and Pixie Pinnacle are huge (60-70 foot) pillars of coral, which are amazing to dive and slow circle as you come up to the surface. They are teeming with wildlife, as you can see in the attached picture of Pixie Pinnacle. Today, the coolest thing we saw was a 7-foot long sea snake. It's incredible how it moves through the water, but John was pretty disconcerted as he remembers from the Discovery Channel that the Australian sea snake is the #1 most poisonous snake in the world...regardless of the fact that it's generally considered non-dangerous to humans. The sea snake we saw came within 4 feet of our group, not really paying any heed to us, but close enough to get our heart rates up pretty good.
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5 comments:
I probably should have mentioned this earlier in the trip, but here goes: Lets try to stay away from "#1 most poinsonous" anything from here on out. :) Thanks, I'd prefer you both come back in one piece (two pieces? What's the grammar here? Oh, you know what I mean.)
You're sure making this whole office desk-job thing seem even more appealing this grey Thursday morning. If I don't get back to the blog before then, have a great holiday and trip home!
Forster.
This is the best title of all all of the posts!
Wow! This is a party you do get to go on land!
Forster, thanks for the concern. We made it back safely with all of our pieces intact.
Yeah, Aussies have funny names for everything. Pinnacles are called bommies, made for a few laughs on the boat.
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