The Coral and Coast Excursion: Cairns Part II—The Great Barrier Reef

Our first night at Gilligan’s we decided to check out the night life a little bit.  Conveniently, it was located on the ground floor of the hostel.  So Joel and I took down a couple $2 beers and observed the local talent while the some of the other Study Australia students decided to make a lasting first impression for American all college students (I won’t go into detail, but it involved jelly wrestling…).  Anyway, we had another big day planned as we were headed out for the Great Barrier Reef at 8AM, so after the main event, I called it a night.

I was excited for this part of the trip because I spent the month of January preparing to become scuba-certified; all I needed now was my “open water training.”  I knew that our day trip included a scuba dive, and I was hoping it would count toward my certification.  It turns out that a 15 minute beginner dive with a divemaster holding your hand the entire way does not supplement two full days of practicing diving skills and techniques (who knew?).  Oh well, at least I brought my own fins, mask, and snorkel (“look good, swim good” or at least that’s what I’m told).  So after some sausage and egg rolls, a 30 minute safety lecture, and a 45 minute presentation on the plant and animal life at the GBR, we finally dropped anchor and were given the green light to test the water out.  Needless to say, I was the first one in the water.  We were in the middle of the sea, nothing in sight but deep blue water.  Or at least that’s what I saw before I got in.

It was absolutely amazing to observe what goes on at the world’s largest living entity.  At this 100ft deep part of the ocean, there were more different species of fish that I had ever seen in my life, and the cool part was that they just treated me like one of them.  Schools of fish would swim right through my legs; they weren’t in the least bit scared.  Perhaps that’s why I enjoyed just swimming alone watching everything going on—it just felt so peaceful, the reef had adopted me as one of its own.

After about a half an hour of swimming about on my own, it was finally time to come back to the boat, get the scuba gear on and take a trip a few meters deeper than I could go in just my wetsuit.  On the swim back to the boat, I ran into Joel, still a little skeptical about the immersion process that I just took part in (there were large strings of squishy fish eggs everywhere that possibly could have been mistaken for a jellyfish).  Luckily Joel snapped a shot of one just before he was about to get “stung.”

I didn’t ease Joel’s spirits too much either when I told him about the “bluey” that nearly missed me a couple of minutes prior (For those who don’t speak Australian English, this is also known as a Portuguese Man’O’War or a Blue Bottle Jellyfish.   One of the divemasters on the boat had previously assured us that if stung by these little things, we probably wouldn’t die, but would experience the most excruciating pain of our lives for 30 long minutes).  Anyway, Joel followed me onto the boat after that even though his scuba wasn’t for another 30 minutes or so.

After putting my equipment on like a champion and promptly assuring the divemaster that I had done scuba pool training, so he didn’t need to babysit me,  we were off to the ocean floor.  It was pretty amazing, once again, to see all of the life that was really down there.  We probably only covered about 50 square meters, and all I could think of was just how vast this entity must be.  Needless to say, I was in awe as I felt so much littler than I do in Louisville, KY.  When we finished our short 20 minute dive, it was time for a little snack.  So after a large glass of water and some fruit salad, I saw Joel surfacing from his dive.  Apparently he had a pretty good time, and was starting to warm up to the water after all (I guess he didn’t see any blueys).

So after I chucked a few fish eggs at him, and he realized that they their gelatin-like texture was more fun than scary, we headed back in to do some more snorkeling.  He and I snapped a few shots of the Reef:

The Parrot Fish, one of my favorites and one of the most vibrant (there was a pink version that we saw as well).

The pictures don’t really do the colors justice.  Every piece of coral had its own unique hue.

Quickly after we got back in the water, we were summoned back onto the boat for lunch and relocation to our afternoon spot.  So after some sausages and burgers and astonishment-, veneration-, and amazement-filled conversation (This was a theme for the entire trip.) we were at our afternoon stop, which was only about 400m away from a tiny island (turtle territory).  Joel and I were the first ones in the water, and soon afterward we met up with Amanda to explore.  After about an hour in the water we finally saw a turtle.  Our excursion leader/chaperone, Matt, was chasing it, so he was able to get a pretty good snapshot (ignore the remnant of a finger in the top right corner):

This was one of the top three highlights of the cruise.  The next one, probably number one (although Amanda would beg to differ, and you’ll see why shortly) was the pair of black finned sharks that swam right beneath us.  Unfortunately they were slightly quicker than the turtle, so we weren’t able to get a picture.  I grew up loving sharks, so this was a treat for me.  We were pretty far away from the boat and by then most people had elected to tan on the top of the ship rather than remain in the water, so the three of us were among about 5 or 6 people that actually saw a shark from our boat that day.  A few minutes later, right before we were going to be called back to the ship, Joel dared me to pick up a sea cucumber, and since I rarely turn down a challenge that involves touching or eating something, I accepted:

When I put it back down, the ship’s crew waved us in, and as Joel and I started swimming, Amanda yelled to stop us.  Startled, we both turned around and hurried back to her at the location of my completed dare.  She was so hysterical, that we almost couldn’t understand her.  So after a couple “wait, what?”s, she told us that when I put the cucumber back, it pooped before returning to its original, flat state.  Joel and I were skeptical at first, but upon further review, the call stood as we were escorted to the exact spot of a long white string of cucumber defecation.  I was lucky it didn’t decide to do this a few minutes earlier.  This was highlight number three (number one for Amanda).

After returning to the ship (we were the last ones on the boat), we helped ourselves to some cheese and wine and enjoyed the ride back to shore, bragging about what we had seen throughout the day, especially over the past few hours.  I think it suffices to say that we maximized our reef experience.

-Daniel Nall