We flew from Honolulu to Sydney to Cairns. It was a long travel day, but we made time to hit a gym and restaurant between flights. That made the long hours in uncomfortable seats just a little better. I had planned in a day of buffer before leaving on a dive boat for three days and two nights. It was ridiculously hot that day. We walked the esplanade with it's lagoon (public pool) by the sea (apparently no one swims in the sea because of crocodiles and sharks), playgrounds, skate park, bouldering area and live musicians. What a cool place! There are cool sculptures here and there. Pelicans preened along the coast (side note: are they not seriously the weirdest birds? they can make their mouths turn inside out. Bizarre!) Colorful lorikeets flew everywhere being noisy and contentious. We must have seen 10-15 other varieties of birds.
Past the Esplanade is the Flecker Botanical Garden. It's a giant semi-cultivated wilderness area north of town. As we walked along under the trees, I saw what I thought would be a good picture. and started following what I thought was a slightly underutilized trail. Mike asked if I was sure this was a trail. I told him that it looked like one but I should probably remember I'm not in Hawaii anymore. Then I startled a snake and ran back the way I came yelling obscenities. Classy. I hate snakes. Remember this is Day One. Winning.
The next morning we woke to POURING rain. The bus for the dive boat picked us up promptly at 6:15 AM. After dropping our extra bag off at the dive shop, we boarded the boat with 31 other divers and snorkelers. We were assigned a cabin with a double bed right next to the galley. The ride out to the reef takes about three and a half hours. It was raining relentlessly and windy, so the seas were rough. Most of the folks on the boat were looking a little green by the time we arrived.
We did four dives the first day on Milln Reef. Jumping in the water after the boat ride was really great for relieving any sort of seasickness. We saw an enormous giant clam. I know that sounds reduntant, but it was a giant clam, and it was a REALLY big giant clam. Anyway, other things we saw: a cuttlefish (not cuddly, but alien), sting rays, a few turtles, some sharks, a thousand different fish, some fantastic coral, massive bumphead parrotfish, and a titan triggerfish that tried to beat up Mike. I noticed this attack and did what every good dive buddy should: took pictures. He had it handled.
The night dive the first day was amazing. The boat's lights attract plankton which attracts small fish which attract big fish which attract sharks. That's a whole lotta attraction right there. Mike and I opted to go for our own dive. While I was putting my fins on, a shark swam through my jump in point. I let Mike go first. See? Best dive buddy ever, right here. Dropping into the water was awesome! I was surrounded by big fish using my light to hunt. My beam caught the eyeshine of a gray reef shark and I watched it circle wide as I descended. I love night diving. My world shrinks to what I can see in my flashlight beam. I have very little trepidation or fear of what I can't see. In this case, what I couldn't see were likely a few sharks, lots of big fish and some pinchy things. Nothing too worrisome. One of my favorite things about diving at night is that shrimp have eyes that reflect red in a torch beam. That makes them easy to spot. They're really cool and everywhere. At one point, I looked down at a five foot whitetip reef shark who was hunting. He was right below me. Beautiful.
One of the cool things about this dive boat is that they teach you to use a compass, give a kick-ass dive brief and throw you in the water to do your thing. This teaches navigation skills as well as time/air management and gives a diver free rein to manage her own time. By the time the trip was over I was feeling really good about navigating my own dives. Mike and I were almost always first in the water and last or nearly last out of it. Because of that, dive sites never felt crowded and we never felt rushed. If we wanted 10 minutes to capture a cuttlefish or to chase around a school of bumphead parrotfish, no big deal.
The second day was Christmas. We woke up to dive right away. With the foul weather, the visibility in the water had deteriorated a lot. We went a different direction and explored a giant split "bommie" (meaning formation in the water). The split was this cool canyon thing full of seafans and featherstars. In perfect vis, it would have been unbelievable. It was still cool. When we came up for brekkie (side note: Australians LOVE to turn every noun into a shorter word and add ie to the end), we learned that the boat ahead of us had snapped their mooring line during the night because of the wind. Subsequently, they cancelled all dives for the day. So, we stayed put and did two dives around the split. The second dive had nothing for visibility, but was memorable because when we returned to the dive boat, we ascended through a huge bloom of moon jellyfish. They were everywhere, so thick that they could not be avoided. We were dressed head to toe in thin stinger suits, so were only affected on our faces. It was absolutely incredible.
In the afternoon, the weather was cooperating enough to move us to Flynn Reef. The dive we did there was my favorite of the day. It wound through lots of little bommies with swim-throughs and canyons to follow. The vis wasn't bad and we saw several turtles, stingrays, and woke up a sleepy whitetip. The colors, fish and coral were gorgeous! I loved it. The night dive was canceled "because the wind picked up", really it was Christmas night and the crew wanted to chill and have a drink. Can't blame them there. Pedro, the chef, cooked us up a fantastic Ham dinner with GF fruitcake and custard for dessert. Leighton, Ryan, Chris, James, and Mel, the dive masters and boat crew made up a trivia game and divided us into groups to play. We were all really bad at underwater and Australia trivia. BUT, my team won. Yeah! We won candy bars. I saved them for the train to Proserpine. It was a loud, really fun night with a bunch of strangers who felt like friends.
We woke up roasting during the night and found out it was due to 100 liters of jellies being sucked into the air conditioner condenser intake and clogging it. So crazy! The last day was really poor vis. We did three more dives on Flynn Reef. The most amazing thing we saw was a canyon full of the giant bumpheads. I swam under them and Mike swam behind. So cool!
The boat ride back was quiet and less tough than the way out. I napped the whole way. Being on a boat does that to me. We checked back into the hostel, took real showers (being able to shampoo and condition my hair was the best moment of the whole day), and met up with a bunch of folks at Bavarian Beerhouse for food and drinks. Ryan and James showed up and provided no end of entertainment. Ryan is a kiwi and all personality with entertaining small town party boy stories.
The next morning we boarded a train to Proserpine which is south of Cairns. Since we had 8 hours, we read, napped, watched movies, ate anything we could get our hands on. I watched the beautiful Queensland countryside flying by and even saw a wild kangaroo bouncing through a field. Cool! A bus took us to beautiful Airlie Beach where I talked Mike into a run on the boardwalk in the dark. So worth it. The boardwalk runs all along the coast past fancy resort condos and yacht harbors.
I was going to do all of Queensland in one post, but this is already ridiculously long. So, see Australia Post #2.
What a very cool way to celebrate 40 years on the planet! You 2 are such great adventurers! Loved your video!
ReplyDeleteWhat were those cool fish that you swam by in the crevice?? They were terrific! I googled “giant flappy fish Australia” and came up with Green Head Hump Parrotfish.
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