Easter Holidays on Big Cat -- April 2012

by Jo Boniface

Easter presented itself for an awesome long weekend of Big Cat diving, with warm sunny weather, great divers and crew, we were bound for the ocean wonders and seeking out some less seen sites. After starting out at Flinders Reef due to some bumpy seas, we then found our way out to Big Cat Bump, Middle Mountain, Mary’s Lair (with Mary on board to dive it ), China Wall, Henderson’s Rock, a quick trip down to Straddie for Shark Alley and Shag Rock, Cherubs Cave, LG Bommie and beautiful Kim’s Castle rounded off our weekend with a spectacular final dive.

Over the weekend there was sightings of turtles, big fat Wobbegongs, Octopus, Squid, a beautiful big Grey Nurse at China Wall, Tawny Nurse sharks hiding with Wobbeys at Shag Rock, a Leopard shark, a Shovel nose shark and a Manta teasing us on the surface at Shag who refused to dance with the divers underwater. There were Eagle Rays, Gropers, Schooling Barracuda & Kingfish, an Indian fish, a cute cuttlefish was found hiding under a Turtles fin, Squid and there were a couple of huge prehistoric decorator crabs found.

We scored a fantastic full moon weekend, which bought about some great night dives and a little full moon chasing. Some divers managed to get in a drift dive, while others found the boat was just around the corner and figured it was just as easy to come back to the boat. After a yummy roast dinner by Big Cat Crew on Easter Sunday, Snorkel Safari staff provided an evening of entertainment with Jeremy leading a staff sing-a-long on the dive deck. The weekend provided celebrations of many varieties; the Easter Bunny found us with divers waking on Easter Sunday to find Easter eggs tied on their tanks, Jeremy celebrated his birthday (even tho he hoped to hide from it out at sea!) and he shared his cake with Reece and a BIG congratulations go out to Nick for completing his 100th dive and Frank on his 200th dive on the trip. A big thanks to all divers, crew and marine life that made Easter a fantastic dive trip!