From the Trainee Matthew Seaton 31/03/06

It all started when we arrived at Cairns Marlin Mariner. From there we had to clean the boat and then Ewan, Pedar and I got off the boat and visited our relations for two nights and a day. I told them about all our jobs on the boat. They said "Good on ya my boy, Congratulations for that" they were very happy and proud of me! On Wednesday I got up about 6 in the morning as I had to get all my stuff ready because we were leaving at 8 o'clock at the jetty. I was panicking because I thought I was going to miss the boat. That's when I met four people from the boat. From there we started our journey, me and my mate Ewan were a bit tired and fell asleep on the boat and didn't wake up for about 3 hours. And that's when we arrived at Fitzroy Island.

It was pretty bad that day because I didn't get to dive. From there we went to Green island, it was a rough ride with big waves. That's when four of them went out on a snorkel but I didn't go because I was saving my energy for a big day diving. The next day we dived in the afternoon, it was pretty rough there, it was going from side to side and we didn't see any fish but we saw heaps and heaps of good coral, some was bleached, about a quarter of them. After that we came up to the surface and started a long swim over to the boat. It was pretty annoying that day, rain was coming down really heavy all day till night time.

From there we anchored at Hastings Reef and I was on watch from 5am to 6am. And I slept for half a day. We went diving today, the last day of the month. We saw about five massive fish and I saw some scientific monitoring equipment that must have been there for a long time. I only had 60 bars of air left, which is not much! That's when me and Ewan went out to snorkel and spear fish for dinner. There was lots of sharks coming in because they've got good sense to smell what's going on.

Tonight I am on anchor watch till 1am. My diving instructor Marina is on watch, a late one from 4 -5 am and I am teasing her about it and she didn't like that one little bit. My mates just now caught a big big big big Red Bass and Gary the skipper had to let it go because the fish is poisonous. Now that's it for this log, it's time for me to have a great sleep.

PS send me an e-mail.

PPS BY THE WAY I AM NOW A QUALIFIED OPEN WATER DIVER, I'll get my certificate soon.

From
Matty