More bubbles at the Great Barrier Reef

Got picked up in the morning by the same dive company I used last time. Thought that if it is good, there is no reason to change. I was familiar with how things worked, knew a few people there too, couldn't go wrong. We drove to the dive shop to store luggage and pay some reef taxes. A little Japanese girl had some problems with her VISA card, it was rejected again and again. The guy in the dive shop was a little old fashioned and had his principles, and wouldn't let her pay during or after the trip. The trip cost of more than $600 had already been paid a long time ago, now they needeed $60 more. They called the Japanese bank a couple of times, but they were not sure they could fix it right away, it would take some time before the changes were active. There was 10 people in the dive shop looking impatiently at the girl, she didn't know what to do. The dive shop manager told her she would have to postpone her trip till the next day if she couldn't pay. I told the manager he was being a bit ridiculous, and put my credit card on the table. She was so grateful like only Japanese girls can be
We got on the shuttle and were driven to the boat, seems like the boat had just been waiting on our small group, so the moment we were aboard the boat left the harbor. The boat ride out there was really bumpy, the weather was a little rough so a lot of people got motion sick, a lot! The entire lower outside deck was filled with people filling their breakfasts into brown paper bags. I am guessing 1/3rd of the people got sick, to their defense, the boat was jumping a lot and had a couple of good free falls
I met some old faces I recognized and one in particular, the Japanese instructor I had become friends with on my last trip. Unfortunately she was working on the day boat, and not the overnight one out on the ocean.
In the afternoon we transferred to the overnight ocean boat, turned out I didn't know anyone at all on the boat, kind of disappointing.
This for sure felt like a beginner crew, last time most people seemed super knowledgeable and competent, that was not exactly the case here, seemed a little like trainees, but I guess that is how everyone starts.
The water was nice as warm as I remembered it from last time and the visibility was great too. I had been doing a couple of dives on the other boat with some girls and on the new boat I met a guy from LA, Fortino, who became my dive buddy for the day.
The visibility got a lot worse once we started diving from the big boat, the weather had turned a little worse too, raining and windy. There were quite a few swells on the surface, I guess it all affects the visibility on the bottom. Now I probably make it sound bad, but it wasn't really.
We got to see some pretty awesome things. The giant clams for example are around half a meter long. They come in different sizes of course, but also various colors. Looking at them in the water and they almost hypnotize you with the colors and strange patterns, while pumping water through making the pattern move too.
There are always some clown-fish to find around in their little anemone, defending it like their lives depend on it, which it probably does.
The Christmas tree spirals were there in different colors too, at least blue and white. I thought last time they were plants, but once you get close to them, the entire thing disappears into a small hole in the coral.
There were a handful of lion fish too, they are pretty poisonous on their fin rays, but they look pretty spectacular when they actually swim around instead of just hiding in the dark
The stingray was there this time too, and actually behaved very well when taking pictures of it. It didn't swim away even though I was only 30cm away from it.
We found some additional clown-fish, but this family was living in a blue basket looking thing, very smooth and purple. Looked very nice, but there was a lot of current above it, so a little hard to stay still in the water to get the picture
I have to admit, I still don't know what this blue yellowish thing is, last time I saw it, I thought it was a shell kind of thing, but it is all flexible and will close up itself if it senses something close by. Takes water in through one hole and pumps it from the other hole. Maybe it is natures own water filter animal?
We also got a few chances of swimming with the turtles. They are funny animals and make me smile whenever I meet them. Living life in slow motion almost. They are curious, but too lazy to do anything about it, just turning the head to see what is there.

At the night dive we had the waters full of sharks behind the boat, but apparently it has been a long time since I saw the movie, Jaws. At least we jumped without fear... Some of us, turned out Fortino was a little scared of them after all, haha. At some point we went through some swim-throughs, tunnels a few meters long, the current brought me a little too close to the edge and I had to put a finger on the reef to avoid a total crash. I hit something sharp and started bleeding. We were so deep that the red colored blood was black instead. I thought it was funny and Fortino told me not to do that underwater, what if the sharks would come? hahaha

During the night dive we got to see new animals that usually hide during the day. It took a while to spot them, but after a few minutes the small things start to appear, like a lot of shrimps everywhere. I only got very few pictures during the night as I forgot to change batteries in the flash, so after 5 flashes, it didn't flash anymore.

During the dives I was mostly experimenting with the different settings on the external flash and how it affected the pictures I took. I thought it was going to be pressing the button, oh boy was I wrong. Dive after dive I came up with pictures I thought would look good, but only a few goodies among a lot. Sometimes I even forgot to connect the flash trigger cable!
I didn't buy the most expensive camera gear, it is still in the amateur league for sure. Especially when I see other people bringing camera and lights bigger than themselves.
Before I went to New Zealand, I was kind of skeptical how dives in the cold water off the coast of New Zealand could compete with the Great Barrier Reef? Having been back, I have to admit that New Zealand was much better than I thought it would be. It is just different