May 18, 2009
Location: Whitsunday Island, Wings 3
I woke up after a very sleepless night at 7 am to a ready made breakfast and was quickly chucked into the water for my second scuba dive. We were promised that this dive would be better than the last and we would see the Devil's gates which are underwater plants that look like gates and as the current moves them they look like they are opening and closing. For whatever reason our guide didn't take us there which was rather disappointing but we did see some very cool fish and coral!
The next dive was back at the same location as our first one had been so I opted to snorkel instead and I was so glad that I did! I saw several more clown fish and more exciting was a 3 meter long eel! I thought that there might be something interesting going on when I saw several very large fish all go to one area, apparently these fish act as body guards for the nearly blind eels. As soon as I saw the eel I started screaming through my snorkel and all the other snorkelers from my group also came to watch the eel move from hiding spot to hiding spot. It is very surprising to see how much the underwater life works together to keep safe from predators, I've never seen animals helping each other like this!
At both sites there were very large fish that came right to the back of our boat and were quite curious to see what were were doing. Apparently these fish are very territorial and there is always a dominant male and female in each area. When the dominant male dies, the dominant female then changes sexes and becomes the dominant male of the area. In this bay that we were in there were 3 dominant male fish, George, Georgina and Georgette all duking it out for dominance.
After lunch we spent time on Whitehaven beach which is said to be the whitest beach in the world. This is possibly the most beautiful place in the world!

Swirly waters

I was a little excited.

Sunset after getting back onto the boat.

After dinner I did a night dive which I was really scared for. The instructor and other divers were teasing me quite a bit about sharks but thankfully none showed up. I didn't find night diving all that different than day time diving and I found the scariest part of it all was driving in the dingy to and from our dive site in the pitch black!

The 4 divers took over the on board hot tub when we got back and by the time we had all warmed up it was time for bed! I slept soo well after not sleeping that well the night before.

Favorite moment:

Overcoming my fear of night diving and seeing the underwater night life!