#wordlesswednesday

Great Barrier Reef: Some Super Cool Critters!

September 14, 2016 By Tam Warner 8 Comments

great barrier reef, spirit of freedom, scuba diving — Chevron Barracuda schooling. Look at the back! They were everywhere!

great barrier reef, spirit of freedom, scuba diving — Here is Arjun, one of my dive team, and a real sweetheart! This pufferfish was HUGE. We just couldn’t get over the size of it!

great barrier reef, spirit of freedom, scuba diving — Sameer off of the boat’s dive platform! He was on our dive team on this dive…he was separated from his group.

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great barrier reef, spirit of freedom, scuba diving — This nudibranch was so intricately beautiful.

great barrier reef, spirit of freedom, scuba diving — Another beauty.

great barrier reef, spirit of freedom, scuba diving — This is a Leopard Shark! At a distance I thought it was a nurse shark … when I saw it was a Leopard, my first sighting ever, I skedaddled to take a photo!

great barrier reef, spirit of freedom, scuba diving — I wish it would have hung out longer! It was so gorgeous!

great barrier reef, spirit of freedom, scuba diving — A Great Moray and a Cleaner Shrimp

great barrier reef, spirit of freedom, scuba diving — This is just too awesome! A Cleaner Shrimp cleaning a Great Moray!

great barrier reef, spirit of freedom, scuba diving — Truly, this is one of the coolest things I have ever seen and photographed! Just incredible. And no, the Moray does not eat the shrimp, it is cleaning him of parasites.

great barrier reef, spirit of freedom, scuba diving — Hello….Olive Sea Snake here.

great barrier reef, spirit of freedom, scuba diving — They were not shy! They were curious about the divers.

great barrier reef, spirit of freedom, scuba diving — Yes, they are very venomous, but not at all aggressive.

great barrier reef, spirit of freedom, scuba diving — A pretty Green Sea Turtle

great barrier reef, spirit of freedom, scuba diving — Gorgeous shoals everywhere.

great barrier reef, spirit of freedom, scuba diving — How I love diving surrounded by fish!

great barrier reef, spirit of freedom, scuba diving — Huge Trigger Fish!

great barrier reef, spirit of freedom, scuba diving — Unicorn Fish…aren’t they cute?

As The Spirit of Freedom continued our dives, we ended up seeing some pretty interesting critters, and fabulous activity as well. I had never seen an Olive Sea Snake before…but I have now! I have seen the Banded Sea Snake who is very shy, and very toxic. The Olive Greens were quite curious, and followed us all over the reef!