18/02/2012
We travelled from one beach house to another, Scotty’s Beach
House in Mission Beach to Cairns Beach House in, well Cairns. Free wireless
internet, we’re in heaven! Short-lived unfortunately as the next morning we got
up early and headed towards the docks to start a diving trip around the Barrier
Reef.
I won’t lie, it was a strange trip. We started off on a boat
of around 70 passengers and 16 crew members. As soon as we entered the ship
everything felt a bit chaotic and regimented, a slight oxymoron but it’s the
only way I can describe it. Half the boat was full of Japanese trying to understand
what to do until one of the Japanese staff members could translate and the
other half was given a quick command of ‘your gear is here, grab and sit
upstairs’. We then had to endure almost two hours of half the passengers on the
ship barfing up their breakfasts until we reached the reef. Asians can’t handle
the sea it seems.
I really wanted to do a few more dives, and I know Scott did
too, but unfortunately we are both completely broke at the moment so we had to
settle for snorkelling. We went to two locations [not too far from one
another], the first was a bit deeper and we saw larger fish and swam with
another turtle and second was a lot shallower so all the fish/coral seemed a
lot more colourful and you could touch it which was cool. And just for a cheap
laugh, this is what sexiness looks like wearing stinger suits…
To be honest, as we had only done the Whitsundays a few days
before, the fascination of the reef was slightly muted for us. We also slightly
disagreed with each other on which was better; I think the reef here was a lot more vibrant here
and I found the snorkelling slightly more interesting, however Scott has the
opposing opinion. So unfortunately, I can’t tell you which was best. I guess
it’s retrospective.
After that our snorkelling sessions we boarded a second boat
along with around 30 people from the original 70. The second boat was a bit
bigger, and housed the cabins which we would use to sleep in that night. Immediately
the hectic atmosphere dissipated and a more chilled out and relaxed vibe took
its place. The crew were much calmer and gave us a quick guideline of what the
rest of the day’s activities would be, and the also what we were doing for the
following morning. For us snorkelers it was a case of ‘jump in and out whenever
we’ve stopped moving’ and we could just go wherever we liked [within reason],
whereas we had to stay with a guide on the other ship.
As there were less people on this ship, we had a better
opportunity to interact with the other guests, especially during the ‘downtime’
between dives and the catered meals. This made the trip much more enjoyable.
That afternoon on our last snorkel / dive location I finally
got to do something that I really wanted to try… swim with sharks. I was just
minding my own business snorkelling by myself by the reef edge when I felt
something swim by my side. I knew I was alone as Scott had gone back to the
ship a few minutes earlier, but I initially assumed it was a diver coming up to
give a scare. It quickly came into vision however to shatter those thoughts. I
let out a surprised, underwater scream until I saw another swim by on my other
side, followed by another. I thought it would be really cool to swim with
sharks, and I knew they weren’t exactly going to try and kill me, attack rate
is minimal, but even-so I headed right back for the boat. It may have freaked
me out a little. Gutted.
Gotta love a night’s sleep on a boat, feels like you’re been
rocked like a baby. Waking up refreshed we spent the morning eating, chatting
and having a last swim in the ocean before heading back to shore.
We had a good time, it was just a shame we did it so close
to our previous boat / reef trip, felt a bit ‘been there, done that’. But we
did meet some nice people and enjoy our boat/hotel experience. Made us want to
go on a cruise.
No comments:
Post a Comment