Great Bar!er Reef
Spi!t of Freedom Day 1
We steam from lizard island to Ribbon # 9 and the awesome site Monolith to do our two check out dives. The conditions were fantastic, sunshine, calm surface conditions and a slight current, enough to bring out loads of schooling fish but not too fast moving for our divers. barracuda, white tip reef sharks, garden eels & banded pipefish were amongst the highlights of our first two dives.
Day 2
We arrive at Osprey Reef to begin an action packed day of diving. Around The Bend, Silver City, Amazing & Admiralty were our dive sites for the day. Amongst the marine life spotted during our dives were white tip reef sharks & grey reef sharks on every dive. Chevron barracuda, starred puffer fish, a very large school of big eyed trevally, moray eels, lion fish, large schools of blue lined fusilier, a massive school of bump head parrot and an oceanic silver tip shark cruising by the boat during the Admiralty night dive! AWESOME day.
Day 3 Our day begins at North Horn to do a leisurely drift along the Southern wall. This dive provided a large diversity of marine life and Coral species and a very rare Thin Ghost Pipe Fish. Enormous soft corals and gorgonian fans growing on almost every inch of the reef provided some amazing landscape photography. Dive 2 - the Main event - the world famous North horn shark feed Our divers were treated to 40 odd grey & white tip reef sharks and a very curious 3 metre oceanic silver tip. Also spotted were potato cod, lion fish and barracuda, crays and a very flamboyant octopus. Dive 3 - the Ever Amazing Castles. Stunning corals and colourful species of anthias and damselfish made for a visual spectacular. Also spotted were white tip reef sharks, garden eels & hermit crabs. Our last dive was another drift dive at False Entrance, yet another site that hosts an array of marine life and splendid vistas. Schools of barracuda & big eye trevally were out in vast quantities, a few surprised white tips resting in the sand, bat fish and a lovely green turtle gave every one a memorable last dive on Osprey Reef.
Day 4 Back in the ribbon reefs, we begin the day with two dives on Steve's Tommie a very popular dive site teaming with life and as soon as we jumped in for the first dive a lovely green turtle was gracefully swimming around the top of the pinnacle. Other marine life spotted were stonefish, lionfish, moray eel, nudibranchs, grey reef shark schools of barracuda, yellow stripe snapper, fusilier and big eyed trevally and a fusion of scale fin & purple anthias, half a dozen coral cod hanging out on top of the reef not too far from the massive orb of golden sweepers. Even our safety stop was bursting with marine life; a large variety of clown and anemone fish, butterfly fish and damsels decorated the top 5 metres of the reef. Off to Flare point to do our final two dives of the trip, two very large Loggerhead turtles and a green turtle were sited by most of the divers, diagonal banded sweetlips, trumpet fish, clown trigger fish and parrotfish were amongst the vast marine life, a perfect way to end our amazing trip to osprey and the ribbon reefs.
!e Crew
Great Bar!er Reef