Finally, I return with my diving pictures! They’re not great quality – I rented a camera and it was definitely not my usual Canon. Plus, underwater photography is a real skill and I lack it – maybe one day!

This giant little dude is a parrot fish – they were huge, colorful and everywhere.

Divers! They were also fun to watch. I did a bit of snorkeling and I have to say it was really amusing to be on top of the water and watch them swim underneath me.

And bubbles! I swam through the bubbles a couple of dives and it was great.

I think of the bright colorful fish when I think of the Great Barrier Reef, but it turns out there’s a lot of cool creatures that like to camouflage themselves on the bottom.

There were fish, sea caterpillars, and sharks all cruising on the sands below us.

On the very last day, I saw this guy! On my night dive, we saw a huge eagle ray, which are apparently super rare, but because it was a night dive, nobody had their camera.

TURTLE!!!

I saw this turtle and got as close as I could without feeling disruptive to her.  She was so cool! I love, love, love, love sea turtles and I’ve never seen one in the wild before and this was the highlight of my entire Australia trip.

I also saw two giant turtles sleeping on the night dive (SO COOL!) and another turtle the next day – this one is almost definitely a hawksbill and I’m pretty sure each turtle I saw was a different species.

When you’re under the water, you can look up and see all the fish swimming above you. Incredible.

Finally, the sneakiest living creature I saw – for the first thirty seconds, I thought this was a rock!

But they’re actually gigantic clams! I saw one that must’ve been at least 50 lbs.  Crazy!