THE GREAT BARRIER REEF

And so, into the deep blue sea for the one we’ve been waiting for, one of the things to do with your short time on this planet – The Great Barrier Reef. 

We’re not experienced scuba divers but we have both had a go before, so we signed up to do a 20 minute dive with snorkeling for the rest of the day.

Cruising 70km’s from the harbor in Cairns landed us at our first reef island on at the edge of the reef where it meets the shelf of the ocean. Here is where the marine life and reef conditions are at there best.

Our divemaster was a beast of a man by the name of Kim from Korea. His English was just, and I mean just, enough to be able to understand the safety briefing…and his funny accent made him sound a bit like a transformer and so I nicknamed him Deceptacon for my own amusement. He also showed us what he said would be his most important hand signals of the day. His hand pointing straight up on his head meant “SHARK”. Two hands on top of the other on his head meant “BIG SHARK”. Finally, a rude hand signal followed by two hands on the head means “F**KING BIG SHARK!”

Once anchored up we jumped straight in and WOW. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many fish in one place other than the frozen aisle in Asda. The water was as clear as a swimming pool with visibility for 15 meters at least. The reefs were huge, the whole reserve stretched 2000 km so you’re only ever going to be scratching the surface of what’s out there. We’re not huge fans of deep water, confident swimmers just wary of what lies beneath, but here it was so peaceful, entrancing and totally relaxing.

 For our scuba dive we demonstrated the basic skills, empty your mask of water whilst under water, put your respirator back in etc. then descended about 10 meters closer to the deeper corals. Immediately we spotted a white tipped reef shark on the bottom and thanks to the Go-Pro camera we bought we caught the whole dive on tape so you should be able to pick him out from the screenshot below.

We also caught a glimpse of a nemo Clown Fish hiding in the pinkish plant below. 

A breathtaking day out under the water. Some groups got to see manta rays and turtles but we got the SHARK! As usual there were an army of Chinese passengers who split into two camps. The first all who would not enter the water until they had on a protective jellyfish suit, life jacket and a hand held float. Then the obligatory second group which we see on ever single boat trip we’ve been on who just roll around on the chairs inside either sleeping or feeling sea sick.

On the cruise home had some cheese and wine whilst the twin brother of Bill Nighy sang us some happy island songs on his guitar. Excellent.