This morning, we were picked up and headed out to Cairns airport to meet our little twin prop Cessna to begin our trip with Mike Ball Dive Expeditions, on the 3-day Fly/Dive Cod Hole trip. The plane only had 10 seats, including those for pilot and co-pilot, and we flew that up the coast of Australia to Lizard Island. Cruising at about 1000 feet above sea level, we skimmed the Great Barrier Reef and had a great view of all the sites that we would be diving the upcoming week. At Lizard Island (so named because there are tons of giant lizards just cruising about the beaches), we boarded our home for the next 4 days, the Spoilsport dive boat. The crew of 12 was super friendly, and the other 26 passengers were a fun bunch. They wasted no time, we were on the boat for lunch at 11, and in the water diving at 1pm. First stop, the world famous "Cod Hole", where there are a bunch of friendly and enormous potato cod that hang out. In the picture that John took here, you can see one of the cod...for size reference, the little black and yellow damsel fish swimming over the cod's dorsal fin is about 8 inches long. These cod can grow to like 6-7 feet long and weigh several hundred pounds. We did three dives today, a normal dive at the cod hole, a drift dive at the cod hole (where you are dropped off in a small raft and then the tidal current carries you all the way back to the main dive boat), and a night dive at Challenger Bay. The night dive was intense, you can only see where your flash light is pointing...which is even crazier because there are a lot of big eyed trevally that patrol around Challenger Bay and they like to hunt by diver flash lights. Trevally are shaped like tuna, and are generally around 2-3 feet long. We'd be cruising around and if somebody lit up a small fish with their flashlight, it would only be a few seconds before half a dozen trevally swarmed and gobbled it up. Other fish we saw today included a school of barracuda, lots of parrot fish, a black tip reef shark, some big napolean maori wrasse, and the very cool looking flutefish.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Cod Hole
This morning, we were picked up and headed out to Cairns airport to meet our little twin prop Cessna to begin our trip with Mike Ball Dive Expeditions, on the 3-day Fly/Dive Cod Hole trip. The plane only had 10 seats, including those for pilot and co-pilot, and we flew that up the coast of Australia to Lizard Island. Cruising at about 1000 feet above sea level, we skimmed the Great Barrier Reef and had a great view of all the sites that we would be diving the upcoming week. At Lizard Island (so named because there are tons of giant lizards just cruising about the beaches), we boarded our home for the next 4 days, the Spoilsport dive boat. The crew of 12 was super friendly, and the other 26 passengers were a fun bunch. They wasted no time, we were on the boat for lunch at 11, and in the water diving at 1pm. First stop, the world famous "Cod Hole", where there are a bunch of friendly and enormous potato cod that hang out. In the picture that John took here, you can see one of the cod...for size reference, the little black and yellow damsel fish swimming over the cod's dorsal fin is about 8 inches long. These cod can grow to like 6-7 feet long and weigh several hundred pounds. We did three dives today, a normal dive at the cod hole, a drift dive at the cod hole (where you are dropped off in a small raft and then the tidal current carries you all the way back to the main dive boat), and a night dive at Challenger Bay. The night dive was intense, you can only see where your flash light is pointing...which is even crazier because there are a lot of big eyed trevally that patrol around Challenger Bay and they like to hunt by diver flash lights. Trevally are shaped like tuna, and are generally around 2-3 feet long. We'd be cruising around and if somebody lit up a small fish with their flashlight, it would only be a few seconds before half a dozen trevally swarmed and gobbled it up. Other fish we saw today included a school of barracuda, lots of parrot fish, a black tip reef shark, some big napolean maori wrasse, and the very cool looking flutefish.
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3 comments:
Smart fishes make good use of human resources! A revised ecosystem. Good thing they were not interested in human flesh.
I will never eat cod again. 7 feet! It could feed a family for a week? You guys are going to be tough if ever there is a jeopardy question title on fish.
Tank
Yeah, the fish are all very smart, almost disturbing sometimes. Fish and chips are usually made from Cod, just imagine how many plates this guy would make!
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