Diving in the Great Barrier Reef!!

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We’d come back to Cairns with one thing in mind – to get ourselves out to the Great Barrier Reef! We thought it would be a crime to come to Australia and not visit the reef. To be honest before we came we didn’t actually know that much about it other than just what it was – but when you are here you can’t escape the tours being advertised to take you out.

Our original plans were to do some snorkeling, but once we started looking into booking something and saw they had introductory diving trips as an option (when an instructor comes down with you) we started to get a bit braver. We also had our campsite receptionist trying their best to sell how good it was to dive – and Tina took a lot of selling to!! Finally we decided to take the plunge and book ourselves onto a diving tour!

The next morning we departed Cairns pier early morning on a small sailing boat with our group of 20. It took about 2 and half hours to sail the 35 kilometres out into the ocean. On the way we were given lots of information about the reef by our crew – apparently it is the biggest living thing on earth and can be seen from space, impressive! To re-assure us they also handed out a folder showing all the types of marine life we might see – this probably had the opposite effect when we saw the page of sharks!!

Once we reached the reef we headed into the ocean for some snorkeling. Even just from looking down from the surface level you could see the reef in brilliant detail below you and lots of different multi-coloured fish going about their business! After about 20 minutes we got the shout to head back to the boat for our dive – at this point the terror in Tina’s face was a picture!

Along with another couple we were fitted into our diving gear – including incredibly heavy oxygen tanks on our backs. Our diving instructor again went over how to breathe properly, how to equalize your ears (pop them!) and most importantly the hand signs for if you were in trouble. From the side of the boat we had to take a big step out and let ourselves fall into the water – even this was difficult going in for the first time! Once we were in the water we practiced our breathing through our oxygen inhalers and got a bit of time to calm our nerves a bit!!

Five minutes after being in the water we pulled ourselves one by one down a rope to the bottom of the ocean. The feeling of being under the sea and only breathing through your tanks was very surreal at first – even just having to concentrate so much on breathing normally was a challenge!

Once we started swimming with our instructor we were taken to where the reef was and straight away we were hit by how amazing it was. It was almost like being on another planet – everything was slow, calm and peaceful except for the bubbles! Everywhere you looked you could see some kind of life and the different range of fish was breathtaking, including some brilliant clown fish. After a few minutes we even spotted a giant turtle swimming above our heads. At points we were all swimming through big shawls of tiny silver fish, amazing.

We were around 12 metres below the surface and stayed down for 40 minutes but we could have stayed down there all day if we were allowed! There was so much to see and take in, and although we have photos they really don’t do justice to the amazing range of colours you see in the fish, and the coral almost looked like it was breathing at parts!

Once we came back up we were all on a high from what we had experienced. We were treated to a great slap-up lunch to get our energy back and then we were able to jump back into the sea to snorkel for the rest of the afternoon. Although, the trip cost us an arm and leg it was definitely worth the experience - some thing’s you just can’t put a price on!

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Comments

[Dave Barnes]

Great Barrier Reef
Guys, all I can say is WOW!!!!!!!! stay safe Dad.