Yesterday I fulfilled a life-long dream. Not the kind of dream that is a goal, ambition or objective. But more one of those more dream-like ideas you might have had under the tag of "that would be really nice to do one day". This was one of those things that I never pursued, right up until a few days before when I suddenly realised I had the time, means and occasion to make it happen, and so I did. I went scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef.
I had booked an extra day in Cairns with the idea that I might do something. And every other shop in Cairns seems to act as a tourist agent, so there are brochures everywhere. I had the idea that I might take the historic train ride out to Kuranda, and return via the skyrail through the rainforest. This is a popular tourist attraction in Cairns, and it seemed to fit well with an ironman-distance event. In other words it was not too strenuous. However the lure of a dive could not be avoided. And when I mentioned this to Jono who is a certified diver he said he would come along too. He is off for a three day diving trip today, but another chance was always going to interest him.
So we signed up for "The Reef Experience" and at about 7.30am they picked us up from our respective accommodation, and we boarded the boat down in the marina. There would have been about 60 people on board plus a crew of about ten. It was nearly a two hour trip out to our first destination. So once underway some activities began. After a paying the bills we were provided with breakfast, and then given a safety briefing. This was followed by snorkeling instruction, a marine biology explanation, and for those who were going to scuba dive, a further instruction briefing. The marine biology session was very interesting, but overwhelmingly sad as well. The evidence of reef destruction due to rising sea temperatures, as well as imbalances caused by over-fishing, particularly of sharks was very sad to see. Even the poor little "Nemos" had been hunted by collectors and their numbers had dwindled substantially.
Once we arrived at the reef we were given our dive times. I had half an hour to spare so took the opportunity to do some snorkeling. This was good as I was able to find my bearings in the water and get accustomed to the environment before having to don the full scuba kit. I swam right in amongst a large shoal of surgeon fish. It was amazing, I couldn't quite touch them as they kept their distance, but it was an awesome sight. When my turn came I was in a group of three with an instructor. One of the group was a young girl and she was quite afraid, and this delayed our initial descent to about one metre where we had to all do a couple of safety drills. We had been briefed on them beforehand, and had all practiced the basic hand signals. However soon we got underway and went down as far as far as six metres and were under for about 20 minutes. I battled quite a bit with the pressures on my ears, but once I got the equalisation sorted I started to enjoy myself.
We then had lunch on board before heading to another reef, slightly closer to Cairns, called Breaking Patches. At this point I had the opportunity for another introductory dive but without the initial drills. There were fewer who were interested, most of the younger girls on board having found the first dive quite an ordeal. And of course the snorkeling is not to be sneered at either as the reef is very shallow in parts. Jono had gone off on a certified dive in the morning, but his buddy from that session wasn't feeling up for a second dive, so he had to go with an instructor. As it turned out he ended up with me, and the same instructor I had been with that morning. The instructor organised a bigger tank for me so we could have a longer session. It did not start well when he deflated my buoyancy jacket and I plunged two metres without time to equalise. I panicked a little as my ears were in agony. I went up a bit and sorted the pressures out. What followed was truly amazing. We stayed mostly between four and 5 metres but that is how deep the area and we had more than 35 minutes on the bottom. I saw many amazing creatures, but seeing a little "nemo" excited me a lot. All too soon it was over too.
That was the end of my activities for the day. By then I was cold and tired and spent the time relaxing on the top deck, and enjoying the sun and the sea on the ride home.
Here are some of the photos taken by the on-board camera man.
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