Upon completing the four required dives for our basic certification, the new divers upon the boat were asked if they wished to continue with any specialist training. Most of those on board were sick of books and questions, and just wanted to dive or relax. Jacinta and myself, being geeks, accepted the offer of further training, and began to spend our time reading up on books.

One of the dives we needed to complete was a 'naturalist' dive. No, that isn't diving without your wetsuit, it's a dive where you spend your time looking at fish and other marine life. Looking at fish was what we had believed was the main point of diving -- the only twist here is that we had to be able to identify them.

For the record, we found the following fish:

• Pink-eyed Bass
• Purple Queenfish
• Yellow Assessor
• Pedley's fusilier
• Golden-Striped Butterfish
• Black-backed, double-saddled, and long-nosed butterfly fish
• Multi-barred angelfish
• Surf Parrotfish

We even found some coral:

• Staghorn
• Cabbage Leaf
• Sea Fan
• Lettuce Leaf
• Plate Coral

As one can imagine, there is an awful lot of fish and coral around the Whitsundays.

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