Day 54 Cairns (The Great Barrier Reef)

Here we go then, after a full nights sleep, I might have a chance of doing this blog some justice.  I will speak in today's terms, but to be honest I couldn't sit up, stand up or keep my eyes open to do anything last night.

So...we started this morning with a big breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast and coffee, with the view that we were in for a big day. Some mistakes are hard undone.  Anyhow, we didn't want to be late so it was off to the marina to get our selves aboard Reef Magic (a small catamaran with a 300 person seating capacity.) The cat was to make short work of the 50km journey out to the Moore Reef where their reef platform "Marine World" is tethered.

Unfortunately for us, we didn't foresee the 5m swell on the open water, and although the catamaran was quiet, fast and very efficient, the kids were all green, listless and vomiting.  They shouldn't feel bad though, because around half the passengers were throwing up at various locations around the boat.  I managed to hang on to breakfast, but certainly felt worse for wear.  Poor Emma was green to the gills and went through several sick bags. 

I saw a pod of 6 dolphins as we were nearing the reef, and 3 of them were jumping at once trying to catch the bow wake of the catamaran, but we were a bit quick for them to catch up to us.  I was told later that although they are out there, it is unusual to see the dolphins from the catamaran.

Lisa talked me into doing some diving whilst I was there, so much of the trip out was spent in a dive briefing.  I was fortunate that PADI now have diver certification listed online and I was able to download my AOW to my I-Phone for only $50.00!  Troy (Dive Guide) informs me that I am the second most experienced diver of the group (Not including him) and that the other guy with more logged dives hasn't been in the water for over 15 years.  That being worse than my 6 years out of the water, so I get to help out a bit more! YAY!

As soon as we hit Marine world, I had to get my wetsuit and head straight to the diving platform to get our first dive out of the way.  There was only a small group of the guide, and 3 certified divers including myself so we were in for a bit of a treat.  I have never dived in a short wetsuit before, so I was a little apprehensive, but the rest of the equipment was really well maintained, and I was quite comfortable.  Our first stop was at 8m below the platform on a sandy floor to say hi to Wally the resident Mauri Wrasse.

They tell me that the visibility was over 30m, but I would put it closer to 20m at best.  I noticed the current immediately, and was a touch light on weights, so the current was dragging me about a bit.  We headed off as a group around the Moore Reef which is directly to the South East of the platform.  We tracked around the sheltered reef through schools of common wrasse, trevally and parrotfish past soft corals and sea cucumber.  We got the opportunity to touch some of the soft corals which were velvety, and some of the non deadly sea life (Starfish, sea cucumber) to feel their different textures under the water. 

We entered an area that had masses of staghorn corals inhabited with small angelfish and I'm pretty sure I saw a stonefish move whilst here.  I checked with the marine biologist later, and she confirmed that there are stonefish in the reef...coolio!

We then tracked around the bombie, and emerged in a series of underwater channels that were exposed to the current.  In some of these places, it was very hard work staying stationary without being forced into the corals.  Troy had taken us this way to check and see if we were going to be ok with the second dive on the outer reef wall later in the day.  Two of the guys in the group were below 50 Bar of air, so it was dive over and we went back to the platform.  Max depth reached was 14m and we were under the surface for 55 minutes.  I was pretty happy to come out of the water with 90 Bar of air.  Much better than I thought I would do.

On returning to the deck, I caught up with Lisa.  Ashley and Emma were still in the water snorkelling, whilst Rowan had a huge tantrum and refused to go in because he was too scared, so everyone else did a guided reef snorkel with the marine biologist, and Rowan watched finding Nemo on the catamaran. **Sigh**  Lisa was called away for a massage that she had booked, so I was to return to the water with Rowan in tow, because he had decided to get wet now. 


I got his gear sorted out (mask, fins, snorkel, flotation vest, pool noodle), and got him down the steps to the water platform for snorkelling, and he spat the chewy again, squealing and climbing over me to get out.  Eventually my frustration took over, so I grabbed him and the pool noodle and dragged him squealing into the water with me.  The next two minutes were very interesting, until I managed to get him to put his face in the water and open his eyes.  "Cool" was the word that came muffled out the top of his snorkel, and do you reckon we were going to get him out of the water after that?  I really do admire his bravery at times, but he makes a big song and dance out of things that I know he loves doing. 

I got all of the kids back together and took them to the back of the Marine World platform where Wally was hanging about.  Ashley and Emma got to give him a pat too, and both agreed that he was pretty slimy...for a fish.  The underwater photographer was around waiting for another group of divers to come out, so she brought Wally to the surface with her, and took photos of Ashley and Rowan while she waited. 

Ashley was having such a good time that he pretty much went and did his thing all day without being a spot of bother to anyone.  Emma was much the same, swimming where she pleased and watching the schools of fish with delight.

We hopped out of the water after a while, and went and got some lunch.  Lunch was brilliant...Chicken curry, lasagne, cold meat and salad, chicken drumsticks, prawns, oysters, crayfish, fresh fruit and melons.  Emma decimated the lasagne, but I guess she must have been hungry after losing her breakfast on the trip out. 

Ashley smashed down two huge plates of chicken curry, licked his fingers clean and then begged to go back in the water.  I made him wait til I had finished my lunch, but he was off as soon as he could.  I had about half an hour until my second dive so I hopped back in with the kids and we went and watched the fish feeding.  There were swarms of large trevally and wrasse speeding through the water for the morsels of fish.

I again had to prepare for a dive, so we all hopped out of the water, and Lisa and the kids lined up for a glass bottom boat tour.  Ashley raved about this later on as he got to see a shovel nosed shark and a green sea turtle.  Apparently they went to the same area that we were diving, but they left 10 minutes before the divers did.


The second dive proved to be much better than the first, although it was much harder work in very difficult conditions.  We tracked straight down the mooring rope to 18m and worked our way around the first of several bombies.  On rounding the corner, the group (6 of us including the guide) came face to face with a school of around 20 barracuda.  The smallest of these would have been more than a meter long.  There was a brief stand off, and they decided our school was bigger than theirs and they left us alone. 


The group continued on a short way, and encountered a 2m grey shark which spent a short while patrolling the water about 10m away from us before heading off to find something more interesting to do.  There was a very large picasso trigger fish that we saw chomping pieces of coral off the reef, but he wasn't interested in us either (Lucky).

Troy took us through some channels with very strong currents, and we found ourselves hovering over a whole field of sea anemone with more than 20 clown fish busily flitting around. 

At one of the steep reef walls, one of our group swam through a small overhang, and hundreds of common wrasse came billowing out in front of him.  We tracked around to our entry mooring, and surfaced to find that the swell had picked back up to 2m+ and the boat had moved 100m away, so we had a pleasant surface swim before we could get out of the water. 

The kids have been raving about their day on the reef, and aside from Lisa being a bit uncomfortable with water in her mask and snorkel, she was ecstatic to have been able to see the reef.  Forgot to mention that Lisa was able to hire a prescription mask so she could see underwater perfectly.  This is the first time in her life she has been able to snorkel with good vision.

We were so tired when we finally got back to shore that we decided going out to dinner.  This was a better idea than trying to cook.  Poor Lisa and Emma had hair full of sea boogies, so we had to go back to the caravan for showers first.  Dinner of Indian food, and a good bottle of wine saw me destroyed for the evening, hence no blog last night, but better late than never.