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Published: March 27th 2007
Cairns Lagoon fishes
I guess you could say it has fish.
Swimming Through Fish
Fish
Sting Ray A Nudibranch, Tsunami's, and the Shortest Bungie Jump in the World
Heading out of Alice Springs, I jumped the only plane to Cairns, pronounced more like Cans. Qantas is the only airline that flies out of Alice Springs, so prices aren't cheap. But the one thing that I've really been looking forward to, was getting to Cairns to finish my Scuba Diving certification on the Great Barrier Reef.
As I arrived in Cairns, I got a bus to
Gilligans, supposedly one of the nicest hostels in all of Australia. Walking into the entrance, I noticed right at the go, that the front desk looked like I was checking into a hotel. Orange lanyards with electronic room keycards were around everyone's neck, while security guards walked outside near the bar/restaurant/club. In the back of the hallway stood an outdoor bar and patio where live bands played in the afternoon to backpackers as they had a few cocktails at the pool. The pool consisted of a sand lagoon like structure with a large waterfall, yes I said waterfall, flowing down into it with the Gilligan's logo underneath. Behind the patio lounge chairs stood a huge stadium size projection screen where
Cairns Lagoon
This is a contained Lagoon near the waters edge on the Esplanade. they showed Aussie Football, Rugby, or other televised sporting events during the day. Next to the pool on the other end, had a large area for volleyball and a beer garden with table to eat at. Each of the 4 floors of the hostel contained a large kitchen with 3 fridges and 1 freezer in front of a floating island and sink for preparing your food. A full TV room with couches, bean bags, and stadium seating allowed backpackers to rest on the four floors and watch whatever daily TV shows were playing. Ensuite rooms contained showers, toilets, and small balconys and slept 4-6 people, linens included as well as a fresh towel. Yep, this place was a dump!!! I forked over my $29 dollars a night fee and quickly headed to my room.
Desperately needing to do laundry, I did all that I had in my bag while having a coke by the pool and reading my Bill Bryson book. Afterwards I went to the store, bought some food, and got ready to go out to the Gilligan's Danceclub/bar that night, where I had heard happy hour drinks started at 9PM. I had a few drinks with my
roommates Mike and Michael, a guy from Germany and Sweeden. We met a few traveling Dentists from Scotland, watched the smallest bungie jump in the world at about 3m, and finishing off the night with a good laugh at some people in fat padded sumo wrestling suits fight for a free drink.
The next morning I awoke with a rather nasty rash from one of two things. Either the washing powder I had used had given me a skin allergy, or the new anti-itch medicine for my Mosquito bites had given me this awful Chicken Pox-like catastrophe. Either way, it wasn't fun and my arms and back were not in the best of shape. I decided to walk around town to talk to a pharmacist for their expertise. They suggested the obvious anti-histamine pill, so with nothing too helpful, I continued onward. I then happened to come across the Scuba Dive company,
Pro Dive, that my aunt had suggested I use, so I walked in to see what dives were available. Luckily one was leaving the next day at 6AM for a 2 night/3 day liveaboard boat at a farely secluded area of the Great Barrier Reef. All I needed
Pro Dive Boat
Liveaboard Boat time!!! was a quick Australian medical approval, so off I went, with alterior motives of asking about my allergy. A few hours later, I was ready and booked for my dive trip. Coming back to my room, I found out that my other roommate, Gary from England, was also booked on the same trip. After an early night and some repacking, I was ready to head out to the famous Great Barrier Reef, I wonder if I need sea sickness pills?
5:45AM came pretty quick, as I didn't sleep much in anticipation and discomfort. After getting my included equipment fitted at the Pro Dive Shop, we were off to the dock. We pulled up to the boat with 22 other people and 4 guides. The boat was larger then I expected with a top deck for sunning, maximum capacity of 32 guests, and a full kitchen and dining area. The rooms were of course small cabin sized bunkbeds and the showers/toilets were one room with drainable floors and a sink. As we were welcomed onto the boat, breakfast awaited us with coffee,
crumpets, toast, meats and cheeses, and some fresh fruit. During our meal we got a short informative greeting,
Pro Dive
Free Gym Bottle. Gotta drink lots of water on the boat. an introduction of the crew, some rules, and a quick explanation of our schedule. Over the duration of the trip our daily routine was going to be: eat, dive, eat, dive, eat, dive, eat, sleep. As the boat took off towards our first dive spot, I smiled with joy at the anticipated fun I was going to have over the next 3 days.
Of the 22 guests, 8 were finishing up their
PADI Open Water scuba certification, 8 were doing their Advanced Open Water scuba certification, and the others were just out for recreational diving. Our crew included dive instructors Steffen, Becky, Uhrs, Eva the wonderful cook, our captain Mark, and Tristan, the dive planner and host. After a briefing inside, we got our gear ready for our first dive and were off on our own for 15 more minutes. My dive group consisted of the funny and animated German Dive Master Steffen, Margaret from America who works in Sydney, Elaine from Scotland, and Joel from Australia. As the boat slowed down signalling our arrival, my nerves told me to suit up, shake it off, and get ready, because in 5 minutes we'd be using our Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. In contrary
Iva
Our wonderful Chef!! to what people might think about Scuba Diving or those scared from watching movies like
Open Water, diving is a very safe and fun sport. Pro Dive seemed to be very alert and on top of all the dive procedures and when people were in and out of the water. I also felt confident in my Venice beach scuba training from
Ocean Adventures Dive Co. and was excited to get my first 4 dives out of the way so I could become a certified open water diver.
Over the next 2 dives we saw lots of sea life including
Humbug Damsel fish,Huge Sea Cucumbers,Nudibranches,
A small Sting Ray, a Cuttlefish, and yes lots and lots of coral. The dives went really well, with my skills going quickly and my comfort level higher then I expected. I didn't feel nervous in the water, I didn't feel rushed. I enjoyed the fish, followed our leader Steffen while observing the things he pointed out, and concentrated on enjoying the moment and the feeling of weightlessnes. It was more amazing then I had ever thought it would be. After coming from only swimming in a pool with scuba equipment on, I didn't know if I would feel uneasy about being in a huge ocean 30
Mark
Our trusting captain. feet under the surface, with things that could potentially
kill me,
eat me, or
sting me. I found my only obstacle was equalizing my nose and ears when I decended on the line. There was a sharp pain in my right ear as I got past 10 feet even while constantly equalizing, but after a few dives figured out how to do it quicker and more effectively. Watching the fish underwater swim around in their natural environment was amazing. Seeing creatures that I'd never even heard about was so educational. Things like the Nudibranch, small but colorful sea slugs that are seen crawling on the sand. I had seen Sea Cucumbers before, which are black fecal-like looking animals, but just not of this scale. When they say things are bigger in Australia, they mean it, as the ones that I saw in Hawaii were about the size of a bannana, while these soft and thorny ones were around 2 feet long and the circumfrence of my leg. Even after coming up from my dive and sitting on the top deck, I was lucky enough to witness an
Eagle Ray jumping out of the water a few times 75 feet away from the boat. With
Scuba Tanks
Hope mine has air. 2 amazing first dives out of the way, a wonderful lunch, and a nice rest before dinner, things couldn't have been better.
That night after the huge banquet of a dinner, the advanced scuba group geared up and got ready for their night dive. As we watched them descend, 2 large glowing entities could be seen and followed under the water as they moved around for their 40 minute dive. With an eerie shiver and anxious comments, we all looked at each in anticipation as in 24 hours time, our newly certified group would be doing the same thing the following night. 6 of us then retired to the dining hall tables to play a friendly game of texas holdem for the prize of 2 beers. We each threw in a few dollars and proceeded to play with pens for our poker chips. A few hours later, enjoying my winners beer on the top deck, we watched the stars shine under an almost full moon night while the sound of the ocean waves crashed on the distant reef. This truly was paradise and I could have stayed here forever.
With the early start at 6:30AM, we jumped up
Scuba at Surface
Us floating at surface getting ready to descend. to have brekky. A delicious cereal, bacon, eggs, toast, and crumpets told me I had just gained 5 more pounds. We suited up and headed down for our deepest dive of the day at 18m or 60 feet. We saw another sting ray, small reef shark, and a multitude of beautiful fish. We did a few of our required skills like removing our weights on the surface and talking about compass navigation. Once back on the boat, we filled out our paperwork for anticipation of our 4th and final certification dive after lunch.
Not to long after, our final uncertified dive was upon us and we suited up again to see some more amazing creatures. We felt the lips of a giant clam the size of a garbage can and saw cool fish called Chocolate Dipped Fish, cause, yep, they are black at the heads and look like they were fondued. As we came up and got out of the water, we were congratulated by everyone as we were now fully certified open water divers. In honor of our accomplishment and apparently his crazy tradition, Steffen gave us all crackers with
vegemite smeared on it as we signed our
Snorkel Self Photo
I know, not much to say about this. papers and cringed at the taste. It was more of a salty taste then anything and I almost think that anyone who likes Olives or Dirty Martini's might actually like it.
A few hours later, we had a long 53 minute fun dive at a reef that looked like Mickey Mouse. This was our first unguided dive, as we were now fully certified divers. We went out in pairs, and I also got a chance to finally take my underwater camera with me. I had purchased a $200 housing for my compact digital camera and hoped it was going to be worth it. As we swam around this amazing reef, Elaine, Margaret, and I continued to see amazing new fish, colorful coral, and of course more sea cucumbers. As I took photos of the vane Nemo fish, I noticed my camera had shut off. Rule #1 for photography was just broken, always make sure you have a fully charged battery. Doh!!
Back on the boat, I charged my camera battery and jumped back into the water for some snorkling. This time I wanted to get as close to the fish as possible and as many photos as possible.
After 50 of so shots, I felt I started getting the hang of underwater photography and would like to experiment more with it, maybe even as a possible alternative skill for my new found occupation.
After a wonderful dinner of spagetti, salad, and garlic bread, we got our briefing for our much anticipated night dive. As we cracked open our glow sticks, charted our path, and talked about what we were going to see, I kept thinking about how spooky this is going to be. During night dives, you only have a small flashlight in your hand for light. Luckily tonight we had an almost full moon overhead, so more of a reflection was given to help show beneath the water. As we descended to 13 meters, we saw a large spiny crawfish and tons of cleaning shrimp with their little red eyes lighting up when the flashlight went over their hiding spots in the coral. We swam around a large pillar and down towards a cave. As Steffen pointed into the cave, our eyes slowly adjusted to see a large 7 ft turtle in the corner. Brian, as he is referred to, was gigantic and apparently sleeping, so
Hermit Crab on Coral
He wasn't crawling around, but the Shell was resting on top of it. we moved on fairly quickly as to not wake him. I found a few more hermit crabs and a starfish before we headed back up to the boat. The darkness and cold feeling of being underwater at night was now not a mystery and I would gladly do it again. Seeing these night sea life creatures is something that should not be missed, even if you're afraid of the dark.
The next day we had our deepest dive of the trip planned at 6:25AM. This was going to be 1 of 2 dives for the day, as we were heading back to Cairns in the afternoon. We geared up quickly, as our cold wetsuits helped to wake us up. We did our BWARF predive checks and headed into the water just as the sunrise was coming up over the water. We started to descend to the bottom with the guide line and arrived at 10 meters. After the ok signs from all, we slowly swam off into the distance on a gentle slopping descent. I looked at my computer while following our leader Steffen and Becky and saw that we had already gone 10 more meters. A few minutes
Sting Ray
Watch the video at the top of it move. more, we were now at 30 meters deep, yep, 100 ft!! At first it didn't feel like we were any deeper, and then you noticed that moving felt slower. As you looked up, the water seemed to go on forever as your bubbles trickled upwards at a meandering slow pace. Deep water diving has a few possible dangers, one of those being
nitrogen narcosis. The most dangerous aspects of narcosis are the loss of decision-making ability, loss of focus and impaired judgment and coordination. There have been reports of people lossing their ability to think straight and trying to feed their air regulator to a fish. With none of us showing any signs, Steffen quickly jumped to his 3 lessons for this deep dive which were, drink a coke, count to 20, and check out 5 keychains of different colors. The coke was cracked open and a straw was given to us to sip. The flat coke was odd, as the carbonation in the coke was almost none existent. Carbon dioxide bubbles had shrank with the pressure, giving it a strong syrupy taste. Next we started to count to 20. Some rose their hands at 5, while myself and others, took
til 45. My mind seemed to be counting at a much slower pace then reality, just another reason why our computers are such an important dive feature at this depth, telling you when to head up to the surface. Lastly, we looked at 5 colors on a keychain, which due to the lack of light at this depth, made them look completley different. As we came up slowly to avoid the
bends, we took time to stop and look at starfish, a cave, and throw around a squished tennis ball. After our 33 minute adventure, we were at the top again and starving.
Today was the breakfast of English champions, beans on toast. Afterwards, the other groups dove in for their morning dives. With our deep dive out of the way, we only had one dive left. Due to the depth of the dive, we couldn't scuba for at least 3 hours, so we took the time to fill out more paperwork and look at fish books. Anxious to take some more photos, a few of us jumped back in for some snorkling on the surface. After haning out with Nemo for a bit, we headed back, just in
time to have some fruit cake. Our last dive of the day was planned for another Skill Dive to complete our Adventure Divers Certification. A few of us chose Underwater Photography, while the others chose Underwater Naturalist. As I took as many photos as possible, I felt sad that this would be the last time I would be scuba diving for a while. I had really come to love being in the water, suiting up, and seeing these amazing fish. If I had been able to stay up in Cairns for longer, I would have, but I still had more of Australia to see. As we finished our dive, we were congratulated again on our new certification and told to pack our things as we were heading back to Cairns. A few photos on the boat with our instructors and new friends concluded that this was a great trip as expected. A few of us agreed to check into the same hostel and hopefully get the same room. Elaine, Gary, Steffano and Ian from England, and myself got a room at Gilligans. That night, most of the crew and guests had agreed to meet at Rattle and Hum for some
Thorny Sea Cucumber
Not sharp thorns, but very soft and slimy to the touch. This was about 30 inches long and the thickness of a persons leg. food, beers, and socializing.
At
Rattle and Hum I had an amazing steak. This was probably the best steak I've had this entire trip, and since we were there with the dive company, it was on discount. We drank a few beers, Margaret brought her computer so we could ooh and ahh at our photos, and then it was off to the Wooldshed for dancing. A few more beers, and my poor old body couldn't take it, I know (LAME), and I had to head home for bed.
Cairns, anything else do to or see? Well unfortunately I was only in Cairns for 2 more days and I needed to catch up on my blog, emails, and general planning for the next week. So the list of things to do and see next time I'm in Cairns built up and here I would like to list them for others to do.
1.
Cape Tribulation and Daintree Forest - I've heard it's an amazing place and it's number 1 on my todo list.
2.
Whit Sundays - Another Great Barrier Reef spot further south of Cairns, but apparently and from the photos I've seen, AWESOME!!
3.
Raft on the Tully River - Looks and sounds adventurous.
Black and White Fish
Sorry, didn't write down all the fish types. 4.
Plane ride over Great Barrier Reef - I'm sure the view is amazing.
5. Drive north to Cape York - the furthest northeast you can go.
6. Skydive - I hear it's one of the cheapest spots in Australia.
On my last day I headed out to get some breakfast and run some errands before my flight out that afternoon to Brisbane and I was interupted by a Tsunami warning. Unfortunately a 8.0 Earthquake had just hit the Solomon Islands north of Cairns and a Tsunami warning had been issued between 9:30 and 10:30. We were to stay in our rooms on the 2-4 floor and not exit until the ok had been given. Exciting as this was being 3 blocks from the beach, Elaine didn't share the same feelings, as she made her way to the 4th floor just to be safe. Once the ok had been given and no damage done, our breakfast spot was chosen 4 blocks further inland and on the 2nd floor.
I bid my farewell to Elaine, Steffano, and Ian and headed off for my next adventure in Brisbane and the famous Fraser Island.
Next - Brisbane and Fraser Island... Coral
Wish I had paid attention to what type this was. Sorry.
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Mike (Crusher)
non-member comment
Scuba Duby Doo
CONGRATULATIONS!!! We all knew you were certifiable but congratulations is still in order. :) Yet another amazing adventure in your long line of adventures. I'm sure you'll never forget this one and it's probably a far cry from any zoooos dvds you were doing last year. Love the photos and videos and I give you credit for diving in the world famous Great Barrier Reef. I'm so glad you didn't see any great white sharks and you managed to stay a safe distance from the stingray. Whew. And night diving? Oh mercy. You're a brave soul. I like your new interest in underwater photography. I'm gonna look up a photographer you'd be interested in seeing. Keep having fun, be safe and keep up the great blog!