The boat got a bit more rocky at 3 AM and we didn't sleep too well after that. They dropped the anchor around 7 AM when we got up for breakfast. The view from the top sun deck was nice-open water in all directions with slight views of either the Whitsundays or the mainland. We learned a great deal about how things were done on that specific ship. We finally went for our first dive - what a difference from snorkeling! It was great to be able to stop and look at things for as long as you wanted and to go up and down, and all of that. The coral on the GBR was small with lots of little fish on them.

We did four dives that day including a "peak performance buoyancy dive", a night dive, and one more fun dive. The skills were a bit boring and meant we didn't see as much of the reef as we usually would have. It was fun to notice the small Gobies up close, sharing their holes with the shrimp with whom they have a symbiotic relationship. The shrimp build the holes and the Gobies help notify them when danger is coming because they have better eyesight. They also bring back bits of food that the shrimp eat. At the bottom there were teeny, tiny fish on small coral which made it look like they were practicing to be big fish on the big reef. The night dive included seeing a blue-spotted ray and a great flounder as well as tons of tiny hopping fish that reminded me of underwater grasshoppers. The colors like red and orange can be seen much better because you're using a flashlight, and in the day those color ranges are filtered out by the water.

It seemed that most of the time on the ship was spent doing skills pages and taking classes-virtually no downtime at all. Fortunately the food is quite good and having a private bunk is fortunate. We went to bed very tired.