Day 127 Australia, Cairns, The Great Barrier Reef!!!

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Hello Everyone,



The Great Barrier Reef is calling!! We woke up early to walk down to the pier for 8am, where we boarded the Silver Swift boat to take us to the outer reef (Flynn Reef), where we were to stop at three different dive and snorkel sites.



Neil and I were separated as soon as we boarded as they had sections for divers, snorkelers, and introductory divers. Neil was doing an introductory dive, which involves diving in small groups with an instructor to depths less than 10 meters, without having ever needed to have dived before. Needless to say he was very excited about it.



As the boat started the 1hour 30-minute journey out to sea we had health ad fitness forms to fill in, and to basically sign away any company responsibility if something were to go wrong whilst diving. My group of 6 then had a recap of hand signals for various fish we might see and the important parts of the PADI theory. Thankfully I had read up on the Internet some theory last night in preparation for this.



After that was all done I went to find Neil who was talking 2 instructors about why he isn’t allowed to do the introductory dive because he is diabetic. Neil was completely devastated, but there was nothing he could do, as it was their company policy.



Once we had filled out all necessary forms, we sat down together not having to concentrate on anything until we arrived; that it when it hit me that I was going to be seasick (again). How can this be!!!! I literally was the only person as well, which was hugely embarrassing after having just told my group that I work at sea for a living.



Luckily we only had about 20 minutes before we were arriving at the first dive site, so my group and I put our gear on and jumped into the water. We were all assigned buddies before we got in; and as the GBR is a World Heritage Site, an instructor had to go with each group of 6. This was fine by me, as I didn’t know my buddy and I wouldn’t have had a clue of the way to go to see the best bits.



The first dive was the deepest (max 22m), it was really good but I didn’t see as much as Neil had whilst snorkeling. After the first dive I found Neil and we went to a short presentation about the sea life that is about. I was called out half way through to get ready for the second dive that we were about to anchor up for. The second dive was better (max 18m), but the average I think was about 8 meters, as that’s where some of the best coral was that still gets a lot of sun. We saw white tip sharks, turtles, bright coral and many other fish that has now been recorded in my logbook. Once this 45 minute dive was completed, I went to the delicious buffet lunch that was being provided on board. Neil was still out snorkeling but he arrived back afterwards so we had a quick chat about how his snorkeling was going-he said it has been really good but a bit lonely.



About an hour had passed, whilst lunching and talking before we moved on to the 3^rd and final dive site. This was the shallowest out of all of them (max 14m). It was the best though, and as the average depth was only about 4 meters, the snorkelers wouldn’t have been missing out on much. The coral was the best I’ve ever seen! Neil took the camera out with him, so the coral and sea life are from a snorkeler’s perspective. The whole day with Silver Swift was $280 for me, and $200 for Neil, so for 3 dives I only had to pay an extra $80/£50 -not bad at all!



In the evening we had the big Asylum BBQ, which was $4 for all you can eat meat salad and pasta. Best bargain in ages!! Our dorm mate was doing the BBQ so we got all the best meats, steak perfectly rare. It was a great night chatting and drinking some beers/goon with people in our hostel. We didn’t go out clubbing with our room mates as we were shattered from diving all day, because we had also spent over budget today and had an early wake up for our bus to Mission beach the next morning.



Love V&N X

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