Flying Under Water

Flying over it was exciting, but actually swimming amongst the coral and fish of the Great Barrier Reef was an overwhelming experience. Not because there were so many tourists in the water, I hardly noticed once I jumped off the boat, but because there is so much life that you’re constantly bombarded with brilliant colors and shapes. The GBR fulfills its reputation of one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

Unfortunately, I was unable to convince the crew of the Osprey V that I am in fact a certified diver. Not sure what happened to the Osprey 1-4? The company was sponsored by PADI, yet I have a NAUI certificate, and apparently the two providers don’t get along very well. I found a way to look up my number on the NAUI website, but couldn’t get the page printed before our trip departed. I was told that this would not be a problem at check in, they had internet on the boat and I would be able to look it up and show them directly. To my surprise the two dive companies are so competitive that I was not allowed to access the NAUI website from the PADI boat. Bullshit. So because of their rivalry, I could not have an actual dive session. Instead I had to take the intro dive course on the boat, and link arms with other newbie’s on our first excursion out on the reef. The first reef we dove is called Saxon, about an hour’s boat drive from Cairns.

The intro dive wasn’t so bad actually. We had to demonstrate that we could clear water from our masks, and locate our regulator (the piece that supplies air from the tank to your mouth) underwater. Cake. Then we were off. It was nice to be towed around to all of the good spots on the reef, while the instructor watched our gages, adjusted our buoyancy, and pretty much wiped our asses for us. The dive was really worth it when at the end a cuttlefish was spotted hovering just above a sandy patch in the reef. A new kind of cephalopod for me. After the dive I jumped back in the water for a snorkel. I much prefer snorkeling; all you have to do is worry about what kind of fish you’re looking at, and when you run out of oxygen, you wait just a little bit longer until you can’t bare it anymore and swim back to the surface.

The boat then moved to a second coral cay called Hasting for our next dive. Picked up a few new seabirds at this spot. A flock of Bridled Terns, small white terns with black caps and bills, were roosting on the helicopter platform. And a few Common Noddy and Brown Boobies were flying around the reef. This time I actually got to dive without linking arms with my neighbor. We were in charge of controlling our buoyancy and monitoring our depth and air consumption, basically a real dive. We followed the instructor around the reef, flying next to steep walls of shelf coral covered in countless varieties of fish. I forgot how fun diving is; I would spend all day underwater if I could. The highlight of this dive was a lone White-tipped Reef Shark cruising again around an open sandy patch. We sank to the bottom and watched the shark patrol the reef for several minutes before we continued on our way. I again jumped in for another snorkel after the dive. The bottom here was littered with Giant Clams, some as big as myself. They had brilliant blue, purple, and green mantels (the soft tissue that produces the calcium carbonate shell). I think the colors are from zooxanthelea (I can never spell that right), a type of algae that resides in the cells of the clam. The alga photosynthesizes to provide energy to the clam, while the clam gives up nutrients to the algae (I’m pretty sure that’s how it works). These algae are also found in cnidarians like anemones and corals.

I enjoyed the dives so much that I plan to book another trip in the next few days, this time with proof of my dive certificate. There’s an option to stay on the boat overnight and do 6 dives, one of which is a night dive, boat it’s around 400+ dollars. Not sure if I want to spend that much, but I think it would be worth it. After all I got to fly here for free. Either way I need to get back out there and away from this fake city known as Cairns.