New Crew

The last two days has seen Illusions with a new crew member. Hayley is a student at Proserpine High School who is doing work experience with us. She is fitting in well and today spotted this whale and calf near Black Island. Welcome to Illusions Hayley!

Whales Whales and yet more Whales

Awesome again

Another glorious day.

We saw the 2 whales from yesterday again today. They had been close into Langford Reef (check out photos on the Illusions Whitsundays facebook site) yesterday. We suspected the female was about to give birth based on her behaviour. Today we saw the 2 of them again, with a little one with them!!!!! WOW.

The viz has been great diving. Seeing Lionfish almost daily! Love these creatures.

Amazing Weather and Whales

I love this time of the year. Sunny, fairly still days. Calmer seas. AND whales everywhere.
Even underwater when diving I am seeing lovely creatures and can hear the whales too.

Nudibranch

Stunning Viz and Diving

Haven't seen any whales yet. Even though there have been early siting out at the reef, it is still a little early.

But having fun taking photos of some of the amazing creatures.

Sea Cucumber at Langford Island

GT schooling up the bait fish at Blue Pearl Bay

The Bait Fish at Blue Pearl Bay

 

Flat Worm in flight

 

Loads of bait fish.

What an amazing experience diving through a huge school of bait fish. Spectacular.

More fun creatures

For some people seeing a moray eel or a lion fish is ho hum. But no matter how many times I see these creatures I still get excited. Plus I have the privilege of showing new divers these creatures too, and seeing their excitement is contagious!

Elizabeth from UK

Elizabeth and Terry from UK

Never just a typical day on Illusions!

Since I last wrote things have pretty much been standard. As they say "nothing to write home about". Sure we have seen dolphins, loads of turtles, but I haven't captured anything exciting on camera due to bad timing and technical issues.

I still get excited when I see nudibranchs, gorgeous little yellow boxfish and puffer fish!!! And tremendously excited when I found an Anemone Shrimp, while pointing out a small family of pink anemones to a group of divers. Unfortunately non of them managed to get a photo for various technical reasons.

The wet season came and went and wasn't as bad as expected. Thank goodness no cyclones. Though a few storms did slow things down a bit.

We have been having absolutely glorious weather of late, the months just seeming to fly by with whale season to look forward too. So I will be dusting off my camera and keeping my eyes open.

The other big news is that on Anzac day 25th April, Illusions was run into by another vessel which caused some damage to her. Click for link to article in Whitsunday Times. She has been out of service for over three weeks but should be back in the water shortly. There is a photo of the bow damage on our Facebook site.