Great Barrier Reef Day 2
7th January, Great Barrier Reef, Australia
It was an early start today - a 5:30 wake-up call: "Morning, time to go diving!" By 6am I was kitted up and in the water.
For the first dive, Carolyn (dive buddy) and I headed off at the bow of the boat and had a good look around a bommie (a large rocky structure that the coral hangs on to) doing a circular route. As it was the first dive of the day, we wanted to get a bit of depth - it's normal practice to dive progressively shallower depths as the day goes on. As such, we used air more quickly which was just a little annoying when we spotted a turtle and had to cut short the photo opportunity, and then as we ascended I saw my first shark - a little tiddler of a reef shark, but it was a shame not to get the opportunity to see it a little bit closer.
Wave for the camera ...
The next dive took place just after 8:30. Carolyn and I decided to stay close to the boat, as the previous dive had us surfacing some distance from the boat and having a fairly tiring surface swim back. As she put it, "I'm all out of kick right now." By now we were fairly familiar with this particular reef - Milln - and could just bimble around at our own pace, generally staying at around 6m depth, a tiny depth but just right for this place.
Carolyn, my dive buddy while on the Great Barrier Reef.
We then moved off the Milln Reef and headed for Thetford, a long reef that promised walls of coral. It also promised to be a testing place for all the divers who got kitted out only to wait for ages at the back of the boat - the mooring point for the boat snapped and then they couldn't find the chain underwater. We must have spent 40 minutes watching the CDC crew trying to get the mooring sorted out, while kitted-up divers and snorkellers got hosed down to keep cool.
As soon as the mooring was reattached, everyone jumped in as quickly as they could. This time I skipped diving - I joined Manda for a spot of snorkelling instead, along with Carolyn's colleague Carol, who had spent much of her time on the boat wondering whether the last meal was going to stay down (invariably they didn't) and hence had not been able to do a try-dive or even much snorkelling. She seemed happy to join in, and we all finned our way over to the beatiful coral.
Coral at Thetford Reef.
As we passed over an area of deeper water, we passed through a phenomenal number of fish. It reminded me of a scene in The Fifth Element, looking down at the streets of New York from above and seeing flying traffic at many different levels; here you could look down and see many different schools of fish all doing their own thing. I have never seen so many fish in one location as I saw here.
We left the boat at around 3pm, getting back in to Cairns just before 5. Everybody was suitably knackered, many of them already having taken a nap on the transfer boat, even with all the rocking and rolling and crashing waves (that includes Manda!). We got back to Travellers Oasis and found that our nice little room with the nice little aircon had gone to another couple who'd arrived yesterday. Not nice. We got another room with a fan that tried to keep the room cool but was struggling. I kicked myself for not paying for the room while we had our night on board the boat - we might have secured it for a little longer. Ah well, it was a gamble.
On the plus side, when I switched on the mobile phone, I got a text message from Paul, the pilot, who has managed to get a plane for Sunday so we can take a trip out to see the reef from above. If we can find one more person, it'll be $100 each (about £40 each) for an hour and a half. That's good value - other tour operators are charging the same for 15-minute flights.