GBR - Quinn
I had two things on my mind going to sleep and catching the boat. My brother, my dad and I hopped in the car and drove to the harbor. Dad paid for parking as Nathan and I went to catch the boat.
"Tom VanKosh" an employee on the boat said.
"Yes, Quinn and Nathan VanKosh too" Dad said
The skipper and the crew greeted us and we sat down. The boat was medium size with two floors. The first floor had the snorkel gear and scuba gear. It also had a small kitchen. We got to the first reef. The diving instructor came up to me and said you will be second so you can go snorkeling for a bit. I was thrilled that I was going diving for my birthday but I was nervous because dad told me how hard and dangerous it was. I grabbed my snorkel stuff and jumped into the water. A jellyfish came right in front of my face and stung me. But it didn’t hurt. It just felt like a bee sting. Just lasts a lot longer.
I sat there worried I wouldn’t go scuba diving. The diving instructor came and told me it was my turn. I told myself that I did not get stung and somehow it worked. The small pain went away. I sat on a step and the diving instructor gave me the gear. I checked my regulator and my gauge.
"Listen carefully" the instructor said.
He told me to stand up and I almost fell backwards.
"Hold your mask and take a big step in" the instructor said.
"A small step for Quinn, a big step for VanKosh" I said told myself and took the step in.
The gear felt a lot lighter in the water. The instructor signaled me to go down. I looked down to see fish swimming by and the coral getting closer. I popped my ears and kneeled on the sandy sea floor. My instructor made the ok signal. And I made the same back. We went over reefs and under reefs. The two of us got to an open spot. A giant clam sat at the sea floor. I reached my hand in the clam and the monster clam snapped closed. I pulled my hand out easily because of the slimy lips of the clam.
Together we went on swimming with the fish. Then I saw a clown fish.
"Nemo" I said to myself.
We watched as the small clown fish kept poking his head out. It became comfortable with me and came out to say hello. We left the nemos there.
We slid on the seafloor until a stingray came one meter in front of me. It was covered in sand. Only the eyes of the stingray were visible. A fish came by and scared the stingray. We came across another stingray. This one was spotted with little blue spots. We made our way up. I sat down and got out of the gear.
"Now, you’re going to want to go on the second dive, right?" dad said.
"You bet" I said.
I went to eat and I talked about my dive.
GBR - Nathan
Vroom! The car went we were heading to the boating area. We were going to take a boat to see the Great Barrier Reef. We took Reef Magic. At the snorkeling area they have a wrasse fish. It was one meter long and its name is Wally. Wally comes so close to you that you can touch him or her. When we got out to the platform we got some lycra suits just in case of jelly fish. The jellyfish can sting you and they can hurt or kill you. After that we got our snorkel gear and hit the water.
When I first saw the reef it was amazing. I could not believe how many fish there were. We saw tons and tons fish. Do you know why some fish have big black dots near the tail? They have them because it makes itlook like they have two faces that scares or confuses predators. Within ten minutes we saw a school of unicorn fish swim by. We saw 3 out of the 7 species of clams. I did not know that parrot fish poop up to 200 kg of sand a year. I also did not know there is over 600 different species of coral and the oldest type of coral is bolder coral.
After that we saw the type of coral that Nemo lives in but no other fish were swimming in it. Even though the coral is harmful to most fish, the clown fish can swim in it the coral because they put their saliva on themselves so they can swim in it. After seeing the Nemo we went to dock, ate lunch and headed back to Cairns. I hope our next trip will be as good as this one.
GBR - Jaxon
Hi I'm a butterfly fish named Butter I live in the coral.
Did you know that there are 2000 species of fish and 600 species of coral?
There are two types of clown fish. Parrotfish eat the coral and poop out sand.
Then I saw a boat and I know that people are on it and I love people. I saw this family they looked like they were having a great day. I followed them through the whole day. I love it. I saw one; he was the best, and shortest. One was very good looking. I thought he got called Jaxon. There were 5 people in the family. I saw a reef shark so I left. I hope that a new family like today will come to my home.