The Great Barrier Reef

Australia's Great Barrier Reef needs no introduction, and is everything it's renowned to be. My friend Derk van Bever and I journeyed Down Under in May of 1992 to dive it. We were first booked for several days on Mike Ball's Supersport liveaboard dive boat, and scheduled to dive the famed wreck of the Yongala. High seas, however, forced cancellation of the Yongala trip, and maintenance on the Supersport led to us being upgraded to the Spoilsport, flagship of the Mike Ball fleet, which was luxurious indeed.

After our three exciting days on the Spoilsport we spent a day on the Sea Trek out of Townsville (or Cairns), a boat I cannot recommend. We were appalled at the end of a dive to see a weighted bucket dangling from the boat smashing coral heads at random with each ocean swell. When we alerted the crew they just shrugged.

We then dove two days with Quicksilver out of Port Douglas. Their huge tri-hulled jet boats powered by twin 1,500 horsepower engines are simply amazing. They can get you out to the outer reefs, where the visibility and reef life is far superior to the inshore reefs, so fast that day trips are possible where ordinarily a liveaboard would be necessary. They accomodate quite a few non-divers on their excursions, but divers are offloaded from the main boat onto small dive launches once the reef is reached.

Things on the GBR tend to be larger than elsewhere - both the fish and the reef itself. We saw absolutely huge grouper, sharks, napoleon wrasses, moray eels, and many other species.

Dive No.	Date	Dive Site	Max Depth	Bottom Time	Night?	Notes
31	5/4/92	Nursery Bommie, Agincourt reef	65	0:33	N	1st use of video rig. Big coral pinnacle, great soft coral. Georgie played w/clownfish & big moray.
32	5/4/92	Horseshoe reef, Agincourt reef	48	0:52	N	Nice small reef, blue staghorn, great yellow nudibranch & huge giant clam. Used just video housing, no tray - it's positive.
33	5/6/92	Wheeler reef, inner barrier reef	62	0:31	N	1st Spoilsport dive, too rough for Yongala. Reef shark, 5-6' Queensland grouper. Got separated from buddies in poor viz, saw nurse shark, ran out of air fighting current back to boat - used emergency air on safety bar.
34	-	-	-	-	-	The dive that never was. Inserted so numbering of logbook & videos works.
35	5/6/92	Wheeler reef	51	0:44	N	Strong current, mediocre viz. Blue clam, blue starfish, nice clownfish. 65 cu ft. tanks run out of air fast! Cute little orange-spotted filefish.
36	5/6/92	Chicken reef, outer barrier reef	46	0:44	N	Great vast bommie. Tons of clownfish, harlequin tusks, moorish idols, some clams. Good variety of hard & soft coral.
37	5/6/92	Chicken reef	43	0:39	Y	Lots of tubastrea, fabulous green cup corals, large squid or cuttlefish briefly, long encounter w/small squid. Big high-hats, nice magenta scallop. Very rough at surface, we swam under the boat between the hulls.
38	5/7/92	Chicken reef	44	0:41	N	Lots of dogfaced puffers, cute little yellow cube puffer, my 1st Napoleon (small 2-footer). Batfish, beautiful coral meadows covered w/damsels.
39	5/7/92	Wheeler reef	59	0:32	N	Last Spoilsport dive, a great one. School of 2' reef sharks, nice turtle, huge puffer, banded angels.
40	5/8/92	Michaelmas reef	47	0:44	N	Weighted line from boat bashing the reef at start of dive. Big batfish, friendly remora, small napoleon, big lionfish, huge carpet anemones. Poor viz.
41	5/8/92	Michaelmas reef	28	0:55	N	Blue-ringed ray, clown sweetlips, very lush soft coral in 10' of water. Big clam.
42	5/9/92	"The Wreck", Agincourt reef	51	0:37	N	Small napoleon, fed chicken to snapper, yellow trumpet. Better viz than recent dives. Big Napoleon up close at end.
43	5/9/92	Two Rocks, Agincourt reef	43	0:45	N	Fairyland of coral, fabulous formations w/lots of blue. Brief glimpse of a jack, another small napoleon, black & white sea perch, sweetlips.
44	5/10/92	Nursery Bommie	54	0:45	N	Tons of fish. Had sausage; yellow grunts all over us. Some small tuna. Big strange trigger under boat at end.
45	5/10/92	Mystery Bommies 1&2 Agincourt reef South	54	0:45	N	Last dive of GBR trip, on 2 "unexplored" bommies. Divemaster Gary lets gorgeous babe drive the boat & give personal diving lesson. Some big fish, napoleons on both bommies. 3-4' tuna briefly.