Diving in the Great Barrier Reef

The PADI Open water dive course started with two full days of pool and classroom training. There we got to learn and practice the skills needed to become certified divers, as well as getting to know our classmates from all over the world. While visiting the dive shop to select our rental equipment, we convinced ourselves to invest in our own masks, snorkels and fins. After having tried the rental equipment in the pool, we decided to explore the reef in comfort.
We then boarded our boat at 7:00 am Thanksgiving morning for three days out on the Great Barrier Reef. After three hours of sailing, we reached our first dive site where we suited up and hopped in for our first of four training dives. Although these training dives required us to practice the skills we had learned in the pool, we were still surrounded by thousands of tropical fish, sea creatures and coral. Highlights included seeing reef sharks, sea turtles, cuttlefish, parrotfish, and of course, the clownfish. After a couple dives searching, we were able to find Nemo. After completing the fourth training dive we became certified divers, and were free to spend our next five dives on our own.
Over the course of three days, we dove in three different reefs at a total of five dive sites. Everywhere we went, the coral landscape stretched on forever, and was full of purples, pinks, greens, yellows, all sparkling in the sunlight from above. It was great fun to go off for our fifth dive, as we could do as we pleased and follow our own trail. There was some concern over getting lost, but a quick pop to the surface would reassure us that we really weren't that far from the boat. On these dives, we were also able to linger around spots that really interested us, play with coral that would retreat into itself if you got too close, and spend time watching fish as we pleased. We also got to go for a night dive - after they fed the sharks off the back of the boat, no less. Using flashlights, we discovered a different world, with sleeping fish under coral, little crabs skittering about, and Jodi even saw a turtle that was bigger than a kitchen table sleeping under a rock.
All in all, it was a phenomenal, if exhausting, experience. We saw a world so completely different from anything we'd seen before, and we can't wait to get back down there again.