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Published: April 16th 2010
After a great week of catching up with friends and family, we left Darwin and flew to Cairns to do something we have both dreamed of... diving the Great Barrier Reef.
There wasn’t anything that could spoil our adventure... except the aftermath of a cyclone!!! The second such weather pattern we have encountered, the other being in Mumbai. Whilst in Darwin we watched the satellite maps with anxiety as a large cyclone hovered off the coast of Queensland. It finally crossed onto land near Airlie Beach, two days before we left Darwin, after lowering in intensity and luckily only caused minor damage. However, the low pressure system that resulted would mean unsettled weather and rough seas for many days... just our luck!
Since we arrived in Cairns late in the afternoon, and were scheduled to leave early the next day, we opted to stay in our first hostel for the trip... albeit in a double room. The location was the selling factor, right on the Esplanade opposite the swimming lagoon. It has been many years since our last hostel experiences when we were young, carefree and short on money. Thankfully it was a clean and quiet hostel and we
Stormy Skies
The view from the back of the boat as we left Cairns...even got a free meal at the local Irish pub... this was gladly taken after blowing our budget in Darwin on luxuries like beer and wine!
The next morning we departed with Cairns Dive Centre for the outer barrier reef for a 2 day, 1 night live-aboard trip which includes accommodation, all meals and 6 dives (5 day, 1 night). Unfortunately the weather wasn’t on our side and the 1.5 hour ride out to the main dive boat was pretty rough causing some severe seasickness for a number of passengers... not nice to watch!
Once onboard we got to diving pretty quickly and although the visibility was down to 5-7 metres, due to cloud cover and sediment, the diving was still amazing. We spotted lots of turtles, stingrays, a reef shark, clown fish (including a nemo), parrot fish, barracuda, a sea snake, and plenty of different soft and hard corals. We hired an underwater camera for 3 of our dives and while the visibility was down, we still got some good shots. Nat also completed her first night dive, which didn’t go without drama as her torch failed halfway through and had to be traded underwater with the
Rough
A few people were sea sick, not very nice! divemaster. We completed all six dives on three different reefs, all interesting in their own way.
We had glimpses of good weather and managed to relax in the sun on the top deck for a few hours at one stage. We hope to return one day, in the right season, to explore more of the reef system and hopefully get the ideal conditions that we have heard about.
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