Ok, So I finally loaded up pictures of the Great Barrier Reef.¬† Check them out at my photo site. It seems that green is a common color…¬† Hope you enjoy

On my way to work today I was thinking that my suit needed to be cleaned.  I stopped by the desk before leaving the building to enquirer about dry cleaning pickup and drop-off.  Helpfully they handle everything so I can just leave it with them in the morning and pick it up when I come home from work.

However, today I checked the weather, looks like a great day sunny weather with no clouds in the sky or expected.¬† About lunch that all changed.¬† Started to rain a bit but I wasn’t bothered because I was inside.¬† I did think about how I had left my umbrella at home but hoped the rain would stop before I had to walk home.¬† I wasn’t that lucky.¬† On the positive note my suit has been washed, but definently not dry cleaned.

It wasn’t an overly heavy rain, but walking for 15 minutes left me thuroughly drenched. Now I have my umbrella and will be carrying it with me to work, even on the hottest of days (it provides shade too).¬† I feel somewhat foolish because this isn’t even the first time this has happened.¬† The other time was on the way to work though so I didn’t have dry clothes to change into.¬† The suit drys pretty quickly though only a couple hours of sitting at my computer dripping.

This last weekend I flew up to Cairns.¬† The taxi driver that picked me up from the airport was the same one that had driven me to my hotel three weeks prior.¬† We had a small chuckle about actually knowing where I was going this time instead of just “somewhere that starts with an M.” So right after I checked into the hotel I went straight to bed.¬† Not the most exciting thing but it was past 1am and I had to get up early the next day.

Sadly I woke up without an alarm an hour and a half early and couldn’t sleep anymore so I took time getting ready and ate a real breakfast before going to the docks to board the boat.¬† I am amazed at how much of a process this is for them, I have always thought that scuba was a low volume, high touch industry but I guess that changes anywhere there are hundreds of people going everyday.

On the boat ride out we filled out the paperwork and were oriented to the dive sites.¬† There are going to be some fish and some coral… big suprise!¬† I was trying to make sure my new camera and case were setup and didn’t leak.¬† I had never used it before so I was trying to find out which settings were best.¬† This took me through the first dive and I still hadn’t found out the feature I was looking for.

I used a combination of underwater macro mode and burst picture capture so I could try to get several pictures and delete the ones I don’t want.¬† I ended up taking over 300 picutres on my dives with many many crap shots.¬† Hey, it is a new camera and my first time taking underwater pictures.¬† Well, that and I am not the best photographer anyway.

I will upload the ones that made it through my deletes (about 100) to my photo site for you all to look at soon.  Also going to redesign my site a little, who know when that will happen though.

It was a great weekend basking in the tropical heat and scuba diving with all the fish.¬† A bit too “easy” for scuba though.¬† I am used to taking an hour to get ready and jumping into 10 degree water with only 5 meter visibility. Being able to see something 30 meters away seems like cheating.¬† I plan to cheat more often.