4th Day of Diving on Undersea Explorer - Osprey Reef

Me holding a Nautilus.
see all photos »

We stayed at Osprey Reef for one more day, but it meant we would only get three dives and no night dive. This is because it would take about fifteen hours of driving to get back to the Great Barrier Reef for the next day's dives.  The first dive was a drift dive at the North Horn again on the East Wall of Osprey Reef. It was a boat drop off and pick up. There was lots of coral and fish. There was some purple anenomes with five or six anenome fish in each one.  There was a really cool orange and red sea fan hanging from roof of a swim through. I also saw a couple of these light purple tube worms chilling on the reef. The second dive was also at the North Horn, but this time we did a drift around the horn and down the West Wall near where the shark attract was. At the start of the dive we saw large schools of barracuda swimming really tight together, as we continued on we realized they were being school along with some large tuna and other big fish by a huge group of Grey Reef Whaler sharks, at 70-80 of them about 100 feet below us. It was really awesome to watch them circle and school the fish and then they started feeding from the bottom up. We could only watch for a few minutes and then we had to swim around the horn else we would have be pushed way out of the reef by the current. Then we got to the pulpit where the shark attract had been and we saw some more Grey Reef Whalers and a few White Tip Reef Sharks. The shark have these fish called shark suckers that use suckers to attach to the sharks to catch a free ride. I actually picked up four friendly little shark suckers and they just sucked onto the legs of my stinger suit and rode around with me the rest of the dive until I had to surface. Then they just circled below me confused and looking for a shark to catch a ride with. I was kind of neat having them follow you around and actually stick to you. Later in the afternoon I got to see something I had never seen, which was a rainbow in the sky over the moon, it was pretty cool looking. Later, we then got out the three Nautilus we had caught overnight, tagged them, measured them, and noted some observations about them. Nautilus are actually ancient sea creatures that have been around and almost unchanged for millions of years. They use to swim in the shallower waters before the current fish evolved and grew to much bigger sizes. They now live very deep in the ocean around 600 feet deep and are related to the octupus and squid family, but are the only relatives with a shell. The have eighty to ninety tentacles they use for feeding and a mandable to push water like a jet to push themselves around. The Undersea Explorer is a research vessel that involves tourists in the research to help fund much of the research and educate people with the need for conservation of many animals, like sharks, whales, and the nautilus. One of their most successful research projects is the Minke Whale Project. They are the only research vessel to have researched and observed Minke Whales in the ocean and have setup guidelines for tourists swimming with them. Some encounters last as long as five to six hours with the whales circling and following the boat while snorkellers just hold onto a rope in the water. The last dive of the day was at Rapid Horn, which is the southern most tip of the Osprey Reef. I saw some cool looking clams, a clown triggerfish, some nice soft corals, sea fans, a moray eel poking out of a hole in the reef, and a hawkbilled turtle. After dinner we headed back towards the Great Barrier Reef and we drove all night long.

I actually picked up four friendly little shark suckers and they just sucked onto the legs of my stinger suit and rode around with me the rest of the dive until I had to surface.