I’m debating whether to do the first dive since we’re spending the morning at Halfway Wall. I get breakfast, even though it feels like I just ate, and sadly there are no more bananas in the fruit basket. Kerrin delivers another great dive brief, but this one with a special warning. If anything is dropped, it will be unrecoverable at this depth. I thought he meant something like 500 ft, but the wall plummets past 3,000 ft, which is deeper than any person or gear on board can go. I didn’t think I would hear his words in my head a few moments later when I jumped in the water, and my GoPro leaped off my hand and began its descent.

I plunged after it, and though I thought I had started to wave and say my goodbyes at 30ft, Caleb came flying by me at 37ft and snatched half our photos and over $250 of gear from resting in Davy Jones’s locker. I think we were both shook up as I watched his bubbles get further away, but he kept an eye on his depth and returned for a much-needed safety stop. We swim around some, but I’m sure his ears are hurting from going down so quickly, so all I can think about is returning to the boat so he can let them depressurize. His nose is a bit bloody, but 0 to 100 will do that.

We get cleaned up, Caleb switches out the SD card (just in case), and John loans us a clip with metal hooks, instead of relying on faulty Velcro. We will be buying one of these or an equivalent before we dive again. We dive the same location so we can actually get a look at the reef and fish, not just the dark blue beyond. I find an alcove out of the current, which is nice, unless doing a drift dive. I see a Drupella snail or two. It’s the most fun finding the smallest critters or their giant versions, such as the black sea hare (a giant slug I saw off the west coast of either California or Mexico).

The title of world’s largest-legged arthropod belongs to the Japanese spider crab (claw-to-claw reach up to 13ft), so no luck of seeing it on this trip, but if I go below 65ft in southern Australia I might have a chance at diving with a Tasmanian giant crab (weighing up to 39 lbs.). That’s probably what I’m thinking about when Helen takes our photo. There’s a shark in the distance and a white-spotted puffer keeping me company while I find a Valentin’s sharpnose pufferfish, a clown triggerfish, and a painted blubber-lips swimming close to the reef.

I spend some time on the sun deck as the weather is the best since we left port. Lunch brings me inside so I can describe the papaya as a watery mango. Someone at the table corrected me with a laugh. The afternoon dive opportunity comes, and though Caleb’s ears are destroyed (temporarily), I just don’t feel well enough to dive with someone else. I argued (with myself) that I would either want to be down longer than them (oh well) or I’d need to come up early from being cold and tired (and I don’t want to be on anyone’s don’t dive with list).

Maria doesn’t judge my cake intake while I read through the second half of the day. Dinner is at 6pm tonight, so that the boat can get an early start on moving through the night to return to the Great Barrier Reef. We decide to read in bed as everyone else has taken medication and retired to their rooms to avoid being tossed about the deck (expecting another 12 out of 10 night). I shouldn’t have eaten as much. The squeaking and feeling that the boat is going to fall apart doesn’t help, and I can cross getting seasick off my list. It’s easier to handle ten-foot seas on a Navy ship than it is the two-foot swell outside this catamaran.