Finding Nemo!

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Day 92 - Eddy Reef, The Great Barrier Reef

Another night’s broken sleep as a result of Dar waking up with the continuous door sliding from the Wicked camper behind us and me waking up in the middle of a ‘dream’ about swimming with crocodiles!

We’ve both got our fingers crossed for blue sky today as we’re off to the Great Barrier Reef with the Calypso crew! It’s looking good when we’re picked up from the campsite by Jackie, one of our guides for the day. We’ve got a few other people to collect before we meet the boat and the rest of the team, two of which come from a Backpackers hostel in Mission Beach and we’d estimate they had a ‘good night’ last night! The young girl went straight to sleep for the rest of the short journey to the boat!

There’s a map of the marine park at the jetty and Jackie points out which reef we’ll be going to today, Eddy Reef, which is one of the outer reefs and about 23 nautical miles from where we are. We hop into the dinghy which takes us to the Calypso II moored a little further out. I don’t know why they do that but it’s quite a nice little trip and much more fun that just walking along a jetty like normal!

We have a few more passengers to collect from nearby Dunk Island so Andy, the skipper for today, get’s us off and running after a short safety talk. We sit up front on the bow to watch for marine life as we crash through the waves and spot a dolphin, not a pod, not a couple but a single dolphin! When the next set of reef explorers board at Dunk we realise we have a few look-a-likes from home! We have a ‘Linda Lodge’ (lovely yummy mummy Linda who used to work with us in Tradeteam), a ‘Phil Lavery’ (who worked with us in the warehouse at Bristol when it was still Bass Brewers), Joanne Hill (our across the road neighbour in Moira who has the best veggie patch known to man, although we hear Mum and Dad’s is coming on well!) and one of the boat’s crew was the spitting image of Andrew Wilcox (drag racing all rounder and son of Julie from Shakespeare County Raceway)! It was un-canny but sadly we don’t have pics to prove it so you’ll just have to take our word for it!

Anyway! The journey out to the reef was lovely and we had a great view from the bow of the boat. We had the opportunity to do not only snorkelling today but also an introductory dive. This was a big step for us both, huge infact! It’s only a 6 metre dive but still, it will give us more of an insight to the underwater world surrounded in safety! To do un-assisted dive in Australia you must have an Open Water certificate but even with this certificate, most dive companies recommend you take advantage of a guide if you’re new to it. This team’s approach to the intro dives is to have 4 of you with an instructor and you literally all hold hands once you start to move through the water during your dive so nobody gets lost or separated and you feel secure at all times. Everyone doing the intro dives sit through a short classroom style session detailing the basic dive signals, how to signal you’re ok, how to signal you’re not ok and how to signal what the problem is! We’re in the second group to go so we have an hour to snorkel first once we’ve reached Eddy Reef.

We’re straight in the water and it’s fantastic! Stunning! Awesome! The fish are just like those you dream of joining for a swim, the coral was alive and quite magnificent with giant clams pulsing as we swam over them! We spotted blue starfish, clown fish, angel fish, rainbow fish, bat fish, big shoals of brightly coloured beauties in all shapes and sizes. It was just fantastic. We both found that we were far more confident today and this was really the first time that we’ve done any sort of ‘open water snorkelling’! It’s very different to being near the shoreline as we have been in the past.

Then it was time for the dive, unfortunately we hadn’t heard the 2nd group being called so we were half way through eating our lunch when we realised we were needed! That gave everyone else a bit of a head start but we caught up with what was going on. We were given a weight belt and then the heavy (crikey they are heavy) oxygen tank is strapped to your back. This is while you’re fitting your mask on and then they tell you about the respirator and how to use it. We practise blowing in the respirator when you first put it in your mouth, that’s important as if you suck it you’ll get a nasty mouth full of sea water! They show us how to inflate and deflate the buoyancy jackets although our instructor will control these when necessary. We also practise the gentle blowing of our noses which you should do with every metre of water you descend. We’re ready to get in the water now which is actually the tricky bit as we have to stand up, walk to the edge of the boat with flippers on, go down two steps and then on the count of three step off the edge of the boat into the water with the respirator in your mouth. Darryl went first with no problem at all, I went next and my flipper fell off! Good start! Our instructor for this intro dive is Andy and once he’s re-united me with my flipper, he rounds us up and takes us through the waves to start the descend procedure. The newly married French couple are with us and the ‘Linda’ look-a-like is already having a major panic because she can’t control her breathing with the respirator. Andy is taking good care of her, calming her down while the three of us patiently wait and get more used to the whole breathing and clearing your mask routine while trying to stay in the same place through the waves! Andy takes Darryl and the French lad to the ocean floor, 3 metres below us to start with, leaves them clinging to the base of a submerged rock and comes back for myself and ‘Linda’. It’s the strangest feeling sinking to the ocean floor but even more strange for us was the feeling of calmness! The next step is to take the respirator out of your mouth, breath out and replace the respirator and not breath in sea water then go through the stages of clearing your mask by holding it with two fingers, looking up and breathing out through your nose. That’s all a bit confusing for me and I don’t get it quite right first time but manage it fine second time and I didn’t get water in my eyes so all is well. Dar is doing all of this with an eye infection so he’s making sure that he’s getting everything spot on and is doing really well. It’s at this point that ‘Linda’ really freaks out and signals she’s going up. Andy goes after her to check she’s ok and the three of us, including her husband who is shaking like a leaf, remain on the ocean floor looking at our new surroundings. It’s not long before they both return and we start to move around in the water. We’re diving past the coral and seeing it from the side rather than above. Darryl is even controlling his buoyancy now and is managing to go higher or lower as it suits him but all the while we remain together holding hands as we go. Andy stops us on the ocean floor to hand us what we think was a sea slug but we forgot to ask him when we got back to the boat! It was like a cocoon but huge and quite hard and a little bit silky! The fish aren’t the least bit bothered by our new depths and all the while we’re getting used to how it feels to be under the water rather than on top. It was an amazing experience and although only a brief introduction it was definitely worth doing. I’m totally stunned that I didn’t completely panic and freak out, I felt sure I would but am now even considering doing a scuba diving course - it’s up for debate but we may choose to do it in Port Douglas just to get a couple of proper dives under our belts.

The 2nd snorkelling session was brilliant too and we saw new fish and larger shoals. An all round great experience! We started our journey back to shore out on the bow again but headed inside after a good soaking from the spray coming up over the boat!

We left with our little certificates and after bump starting the Calypso transfer bus (!) we were on our way home with Jackie at the helm. She’s hoping to start her own journey across the Northern end of Australia soon so we swap details and really hope that our paths will cross again as she’s a great girl.

We had a fab day and will probably aim to repeat the experience in Cairns and then again in Port Douglas as opportunities to snorkel or dive the Great Barrier Reef will shortly run out for us during this adventure!

Sorry about the lack of photographs from today’s great adventure but we’re looking into getting a waterproof casing for our spare Casio camera so hopefully the next time we go out we’ll be able to give you an idea of what we’ve seen!

Love to all

Dar and Sar

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