Sleeping with the fishes

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Arriving in Airlie Beach at a little after 9am didn't provide much hope for my forthcoming trip to the Whitsundays. It was grey, rainy and generally miserable... just as the weather forecasts had predicted. But it had a day to clear up, so I was hopeful. I'd booked onto a three-day cruise around the Whitsunday Islands on a boat called the Anaconda III. It's one of only a handful of boats that goes beyond the islands to the Great Barrier Reef itself, so I'd have an opportunity to snorkel on the main reef as well as some of the fringing reefs. After a day doing tasks in Airlie, where I met up with Rich (and had a bit of a 'This is Your Life' of my time in Oz, as I saw so many familiar faces from the last six weeks!), we headed down to the marina to meet the other 30 guests that we'd be spending our next three days with. The boat set sail at 7pm, so we said goodbye to Airlie with a glass of champagne in our hands and the wind of the Coral Sea in our hair. I spent most of the evening chatting to Rachael, a Canadian who was also travelling the globe, as well as two English girls, Rachael and Charlotte.

We awoke the next morning to find ourselves anchored at Whitehaven Beach, one of the icons of the Whitsundays and known for its astonishingly fine sand, which is about 99% silica. The boat dropped us off on the beach at high tide, which meant there wasn't much of the fine sand to see, but we exfoliated (the silica makes it very good for the skin, apparently) and played a bit of football as we waited for our free dive skills session. Not having dived yet, and not having budgeted for it this trip, this was my first taste of scuba, and it was great to practice breathing, mask clearing and respirator purging with a shoal of hungry white fish darting in and out of the group. After a brisk walk to a lookout, we returned to Anaconda for lunch, and a short sail to our first reef, at Luncheon Bay on Hook Island. I'd really been looking forward to snorkelling here after my time at Great Keppel, but our first reef was just a fringing reef and fairly busy with two other boats. But the snorkelling was good, with an array of tropical fish around... butterflyfish, anemone fish and a few elusive monkhead maori wrasse, who I didn't manage to get a good shot of despite them being nearly a metre long. The coral at Luncheon was colourful in parts, but much of it was dead, partly due to the recent cyclone but also, probably, to the hordes of visitors who accidentally brush and knock the delicate corals.

Hanging our stinger suits up to dry after the afternoon's snorkelling, we relaxed on deck until dinner time, then sailed out of the shelter of the Whitsundays for open water and our main destination - the Great Barrier Reef. Being the only living thing visible from space, the reef is a pretty special place. My time in Oz had been dominated by stories of Chinese ships crashing into the reef while taking shortcuts from main shipping lanes, so I was aware how fragile the reef is. It was a quiet evening as we sailed out on our own, the lights of the resort islands gradually fading as we moved farther from land. We went to bed still sailing, and at around 2am heard the anchor drop as we arrived at Knuckle Reef.

Walking out on deck to see a blank horizon and only a distant pontoon for company was a great start to the day, and we could see the reef as a patch of brown just below the water. We'd be snorkelling first at a part of the reef known as the walking stick. The boat dropped us at the edge of the reef, and we started to make our way along. I could instantly see that there were more fish here than at the fringing reefs, and a greater variety and beauty. Families of brightly striped anemone fish (Nemo's half-brother) darted in and out of wavy green anemone, tiny electric blue and orange schools hid protectively in the coral and giant purple clams opened and closed in time to the current. Photos don't really do this place justice... the sense of scale and depth need to be experienced, and diving down into the coral canyons was great fun as I followed the myriad of fish along and around the different clusters of coral and anemones. We had another chance to snorkel after lunch, then we set sail along the edge of the reef. By now the tide was low, and the various peaks of the reef were visible over the surface, creating a massive brown table in the ocean. We sailed alongside for a good few hours to reach Bait Reef, joined for part of the journey by a playful pod of dolphins, who jumped out of the water and darted from one side of the boat to the other, almost guiding us safely past the reef. As the sun set, we were once again the only boat in sight as we dropped anchor at Bait Reef. Our only company was a group of big trevelyan fish swimming in and out of our searchlight in the hope for food.

We awoke on our final day to a very choppy sea, the several metre swell sending Anaconda rocking slowly from side to side as we headed back towards the Whitsundays. The deck was full of people concentrating very hard on not revisiting their brekkie! We reached Hayman Island for lunch, then took to the water for the last time. The last snorkel was actually really different, as there were large schools of small reef fish who weren't as skittish as those on the main reef, so I spent time swimming in the middle of the shoals, or sometimes just floating and letting the fish come to me. I got out of the water reluctantly, and handed back my stinger suit for the final sail back to port. We arrived back at Airlie Beach in the afternoon, then all met for dinner at a local bar. Free pizza led to jugs of beer and lots of comedy dancing - without the promise of diving the following morning, everyone could afford to have fun! So the next morning was a late start, with a hearty breakfast. My next destination was Townsville, on the way to Cairns, and I was joined by Rich, his Swedish friend Sophie and J, a Dutch guy from Anaconda... so began my final Auzzie road trip!

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Photos

Photo 3
An anemone fish says hi

Photo 1
The edge of Knuckle Reef

Photo 12
A brain coral

Photo 13
Looking back to the Anaconda III from Knuckle Reef

Photo 15
Relaxing on deck (photo thanks to Richard Smith)

Photo 25
As the sun sets, we're all alone at the Great Barrier Reef

Comments

[LivingTheDream]

Underwater pano - cool!
I have never seen an underwater panorama - nice one Jonathan! Just imagine how it would look if you had had better visibility!

[Darryl and Sarah]

Fantastic coral
Great photos as always, good on you.

[SmithyWorldWide]

Thanks guys