Coral Sea Dreaming - Great Barrier Reef

Highlights from 2008
Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Santa Marina and Coral Sea Dreaming would like to share with you some of their highlights from 2008...

This past year we had some fantastic weather and saw some great things. Although there were too many mention, some of the highlights were:

• The increased sightings of whales this year
  
• Turtles are a great experience in their natural state.  While we are fortunate to see them often, on one particular trip we spotted 15 turtles of all different sizes behind a reef face- an occurrence rarely seen away from nesting areas
  
• The turtle mating season was exciting, with several different instances of mating being witnessed directly from the boat
  
• Dolphins like to join us on the bow when sailing, and this year our guides varied in numbers and species, as well as excited us with some new tricks
  
• Refit for both boats with Santa Maria getting a major overhaul and Coral Sea Dreaming spending some time on the dry dock also
  
• The sunrises and sunsets that start and end the day in such a glorious way
  
• A special mention goes out to our friendly housemates on the Great Barrier Reef, who entertain all of us. The Humphead, Maori or Napoleon wrasse, is widely distributed across the reefs of the Indo-Pacific and a favourite of our guests. A big fish with a bigger personality, the Maori Wrasse as it is more commonly know here is Australia is an endangered species and is now protected.With the current protection offered on the Great Barrier Reef we are starting to see the numbers of this fish increase. They are regulars at our dive sites at almost every reef now.

We also extend a great thanks to our crew for their hard work and for the fantastic customer satisfaction scores that they consistently earn & to all the guests that continue to send in photos of their great experiences.

Thanks again for a great year in 2008!  We look forward to continued success in 2009!