2nd Day of Diving on Undersea Explorer - Osprey Reef

Clownfish.
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We drove all night after the last night dive on the Great Barrier Reef out to Osprey Reef, which is about 200km off the coast of Australia in the Coral Sea. The reef rises out of the middle of the ocean on a large sea mound with the reef going upto about 5 feet from the surface and then dropping down to a ledge around 120 feet and then off to over 3000 feet. The best part of my diving gear had to be my stinger suit I got from the boat. It was this beautiful purple body suit that I had to wear, because it is jellyfish season. They have a couple of very deadly jellyfish that weren't really around, but it is better to be safe than sorry. I was pretty much the only one on the boat that worn just the stinger suit, since most people thought the water was a little cold and worn wetsuits. The water temperature was around 84 degrees F, just like a warm bath. The first dive was a spot called Admiralty Anchor, which had a cave throught the middle of one of the bommies that was about 200 feet long and in the middle there was an old anchor from a big ship that had dropped their anchor and got it stuck. There were small cracks along the top of the cave where the anchor must had drop through into the cave. I saw another white tip reef shark, some parrotfish, a few giant clams, squirrelfish, and some really cool, colorful fish. There was this knobby coral just at the entrance to the cave so we knew where to find it. It was really cool inside and it split and you could above the anchor or below the anchor, but it was a bit tighter under the anchor. I went over the anchor and then it dropped down into a bigger area, where I got a few pictures of the anchor wedged into the reef. The second dive was called Cobalt Caves, but it was a dive site that they had only been to a few times, so they didn't have is mapped yet. I saw four white tip reef sharks, a Maori Wrasse, lots of christmas tree worms, another large school of trumpetfish, and some clownfish. The reef had lots of small caves and cracks in the reef to the lagoon on the other side. We saw through a few of them and then back through other ones. The third dive was on North Horn, which is the northern most point on the Osprey Reef. This dive was a drift dive, so the boat drove up near the reef and we all jumped off the back in a group and dropped down immediately that way the boat could start the engine and drive away before it was pushed into the reef. I saw four more white tip reef sharks, parrotfish, clownfish, coral trout, whitemargin unicornfish, and an orange and black boxfish. It wasn't really a drift dive since we had to swim into the current most of the way, but the current keep changing during the whole dive, mainly from eddies that formed of the reef. When we came up and were waiting for the boat pick up there was a rainbow that went all the way across the sky and looked really cool.  We swam away from the reef once the boat arrived to pick us up and it drove right at us and turn just before getting to us and we slid down the side and beached ourselves on the back deck like whales on a beach. The forth dive was back at Admiralty Anchor the same place as the first dive. I had to swim into a really strong current to make it to the cave entrance, but it was totally worth it. Inside the cave there were this fish called Flashlight Fish that have these pouches under there eyes that glow, so you can see both when they are swimming at you and then only one when they turn. If you shine your light at them the close the pouches and in about a minute they open them back up. I saw the anchor again and it looked pretty cool at night. I also saw some cone shells, nudibranches, a yellow snail, parrotfish sleeping in the coral with mucus sacks around them, and about twenty christmas tree worms in one coral of all different colors. After the dive, we had an awesome dinner. I downloaded my pictures and had a look through them. I went to bed pretty early, since I was totally exhausted.

It was this beautiful purple body suit that I had to wear, because it is jellyfish season.