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Great Barrier Reef

Liveaboard for three days.

By Javi Lorbada

February 18^th, 2019

The last few days in Australia.

We couldn't continue our journey without visiting the well known Great Barrier Reef.

And that's what we did! Booked a liveaboard experience for three days and hop on this big boat in which we would be diving non-stop, I mean it, it felt like a marathon of diving, which personally got me exhausted at the end of the day.

Quick intro, and let the pictures do the talking.

Best experience

Live aboard's are a bit more expensive than day trips, and I think it's worth it, cause in one-day trips you can't get as far from shore. There are multiple ranges of liveaboard trips, from 1 night to a full week. That all depends on your choice and budget.

MUST DO, NIGHT DIVE

Don't even think about it, dive at night, it was the highlight (unfortunately impossible to share).

Simply amazing to see how the ocean life changes overnight, little fishes disappear, hundreds of sharks roam next to you. That was priceless.

UNDERWATER GEAR

To me, that's an important part of it, diving isn't something everyone does, the ocean covers approximately 71% of Earth's surface, and oceanographers have stated that less than 5% of the World Ocean has been explored. So sharing this with you, it's important to me.

GoPro 6, not as good as they say, unless you bring an external source of light, but it can do some work.

Do you have any other question? Comment below, I'll be happy to answer!

Day 1

We arrived at the Divers Den office, checked in and ready to jump aboard. In the first boat, Reef Quest is called, we were doing a couple of dives, lunch, and transfer to Ocean Quest, the liveaboard vessel.

The couple dives in the morning were great, saw a turtle a baby shark and tons of fish, on the other hand, I was still getting used to decompression and mask, so I felt a bit uncomfortable.

After that, we were transferred to Ocean Quest. First, we had a briefing about boat safety and rules.

Done all that we were getting into the water, this dive felt much better, the mask was already in place, and decompression worked great, on top of that we saw a couple of stingrays and a lot of fish.

After dinner, the highlight of the day, the night dive.

We were diving with hundreds of sharks, white tip, black tip, great reef, and leopard shark, it was awesome to be so close, incredibly wonderful, inexplicable feeling.

After the 4th dive of the day, I fainted in bed.

Day 2

The day started early, 5:45 am wake up call and get out for the first dive briefing, this dive was at sunrise so we saw every other fish waking up too, shark included.

But sharks sleep during the day so this one was returning home.

There's no better way to start the day, such a great feeling when you come out of the salty water, ready for breakfast!

The second and third dive visibility was good and saw some marine life but to my especial attention a couple stingrays.

At 14:30 we had new people jumping aboard and briefing for the 4th dive.

As you can see it looks like a diving boot camp.

Dinner at 18:30 and get ready for the night dive. I joined the fluorescent dive, we had a yellow mask and blue fluorescent light, this dive shows you the different reds and yellows of the coral, and how they develop these colors and why.

As you can see it looks like a diving boot camp.

The diving itself wasn't that great, visibility was really bad, the light was horrible and I felt totally disoriented. Coral and color speaking, insane, I had seen nothing like this before and it was really unique, loved it.

After 5 dives I was dead.

Day 3

As I mentioned before, this was the diving bootcamp, so I woke up again with the crew for the first diving at sunrise, that was about 5:45 am. The first dive was really good, visibility was great, and because I didn't bring the camera, we saw a couple of sharks and a turtle, pretty good way to start the day, followed that by a breakfast.

The second dive was a different location, and visibility was even better, but this dive, I brought the camera, so as you can imagine, not much around but a stingray.

There’s no second dive without a third one, at the same reef, same location, but different area, visibility was great, and in this dive we had a special guess, a big cuttlefish, she wasn’t very curious about us, and as soon as we approached here, she left, but she was quite big, and who doesn’t like cuttlefish anyway?