A Year Abroad: The Great Barrier Reef

The Reef was absolutely one of the things I was looking forward to most about Australia. It's one of those places you've always heard about and always wanted to go see. I got to Cairns expecting to take a few days and figure out which dive company I was going to go with. At my hostel, the very nice Swedish receptionist suggested I go with Pro Dive. She also mentioned that she worked there part-time, so initially I was pretty skeptical. But even despite my skepticism, Pro Dive had this deal that I just couldn't walk away from. I was to go on 'Standby,' where they'd call me when they didn't have a full boat, and I'd get to join for a price that was a few hundred dollars less than advertised.

I called them, got put on Standby, and within 15 minutes they called to say, "Hey, James. We have an opening for the 3 day/2 night trip leaving tomorrow morning." It was Saturday night, and I had been looking forward to going out in Cairns. Unfortunately, the pickup for the boat trip was at 6:15am Sunday morning, so going out Saturday night would be virtually impossible. I went out for an hour or so, but crashed early so I would be able to wake up for the diving trip.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect, as my research in the company only showed me that it was reputable, had good equipment, went to good diving spots, and that I would get "a few dives per day along with a night dive." As it turned out, I got 11 total dives, including two night dives. Amazing. All this plus a private room on the boat and 3 square meals a day for less money than what I got my diving license for in Thailand (and that was only 4 dives...).

We all boarded the boat and headed out for open water. The weather was a bit drizzly and overcast, but we were all hoping it would clear up once we got out to the reef (it didn't, and only got worse, but that didn't really matter). The sea was incredibly choppy, and over the course of the 3-hour trip out to Milln Reef where we were going to do our diving, I'd say more than 50% of the 30 passengers got sea sick and puked on the way out. The guy running the PADI open water course on the boat even lost it and puked. I don't really get motion sick, so I was fine as long as I stayed away from the stern where 20 people were all puking over the sides of the ship.

The 30 passengers on the ship were comprised of the following groups: Team Deutschland (12 or so Germans who were all on board together getting their PADI open water certificates from a German-speaking instructor), another group of about 10 people (one Canadian, 2 Swiss, one American, a handful of Germans that weren't on Team Deutschland, and 2 from the UK all getting their open water certificates from an english-speaking instructor), a group of 4 people all getting their PADI Advanced Open Water certificates, and then 5 of us who were certified and just there to go diving. It made for a bit of an anti-social environment because everyone was always separated into their groups.

My group (those already certified) was myself, a mid-aged American named Steve who became my diving buddy for the trip, one Bulgarian who had a diving certification but didn't have a clue once she was underwater, and two mid-aged Swiss people that were very nice but generally kept to themselves.

The really cool thing about Pro Dive that made the trip all the more enjoyable for me was that they were very hands-off. All the other diving I've done has been with a guide who is kind of acting like a babysitter the whole time. When we were in New Zealand (before I got certified), our friend Colin got lectured for separating from the main diving lady, even though he was certified and diving with a buddy. These Pro Dive guys I was with were very much "you're certified...so go dive on your own and have fun.

Each dive started the same way. All the people in the classes were downstairs on the boat in classroom areas learning the basics of diving and going over what skills they would be practicing underwater. Steve and I (my dive buddy) would go upstairs with the boat supervisor, who would lay out a map of the reefs and give us directions on how to get out there and back while underwater.

This is the dive plan for one of our dives on Flynn Reef

Then the trick was to get suited up and get underwater before the classes headed down. If we got the head-start, there was usually more fish and marine life for us to see before it got mobbed with 25 dive students. Also we all had to get in the water one at a time and be checked out as 'off the boat' for safety (so they always knew if people were on board or not), so when the classes had to do it, it was usually a long wait.

We got out to Milln Reef a little late because of the rough seas, but jumped in the water for our first dive at 11:03 am. The rain was really coming down, along with a very strong wind. My rig was set up far at the stern, completely exposed to the weather. Almost everyone else had their gear set up under cover from the rain or at least with some kind of protection from the beating wind. I just sat there, freezing in the wind and the rain, getting pelted in the face by huge tropical raindrops as I set up my first stage, BCD, and wetsuit. Actually it wasn't even a wetsuit. It provided no warmth whatsoever. It was a lycra suit which functioned as jellyfish proofing, because April is still 'stinger' season in northern Australia and a Box Jellyfish can easily kill a human. As it turned out, I never even saw a jelly and (according to my dive computer) the water was always between 82-84 Degrees, nice n' warm. It was always much more pleasant underwater than at the surface where the rain and wind made us shiver as we donned the water-saturated lycra suits.

Photo taken on the last day when we got about 2 hours sunshine before more bad weather settled in. That's me on the right and Steve my dive buddy on the left.

So I jumped in the water with my dive buddy Steve and we made our way over to the buoy line, choking all the way through the 2-3 foot swells. The current at the surface was strong and we had to fight against it. We didn't want to use our regulators (because we wanted to conserve as much air as possible), so we kind of snorkeled over to the line, all the while getting tossed around in the waves and current. We popped in the regulators and descended along the line to 18m/60ft, where we checked our compasses and headed out toward the coral bommies. I instantly knew this was going to be an epic diving experience. We saw one stingray, a pair of Giant Clams (the larger of the two being ~ 5-6ft across), and a couple of marine creatures I could have only hoped for: sharks and turtles.

Photo taken on day 2--this clam is considerably smaller than the clam on day 1, which is pretty remarkable because it's still huge.

That's me on the left, you can kinda see the turtle on the right

We saw a big Green Turtle first, and it completely caught us off-guard. We were moving around, exploring the coral, and almost in passing we noticed this turtle looking for some food among the staghorn corals. We paused, suspended in the water, as this turtle (3.5 ft from head to tail) looked up at us and started swimming directly at us. He moved slowly and deliberately, as you'd expect a turtle to move, and swam right past me as if I wasn't even there. He was almost close enough to touch. It was incredible. He swam right up to the surface where we watched him take a couple gulps of fresh air before descending again and disappearing into the distance.

A few minutes later we were circling around this pillar of corals, Steve leading, when all of a sudden he stopped and froze. I pulled up next to him and saw what he was looking at: a 4-5ft long white-tip reef shark. It was laying right there on the sandy bottom, seeming to stare right at us. Until that point, I had absolutely ZERO experience diving with sharks. It's not like we had a spear or a dive knife or anything, and I had no clue if these guys were aggressive or not. Turns out they're not. We watched him for a minute or two before heading off. Eventually our air started running low and we decided to surface. The dive lasted only 38 minutes; clearly both Steve and I were both a little out of practice. My air consumption got much better as the trip progressed.

Our second dive was at 2:40pm; a solid surface interval and plenty of time for us to decompress after our 18m dive. The Bulgarian lady asked if she could join Steve and I on the dive. We, of course, said yes. I don't know what her deal was, if she had a fake dive certificate or what (it wasn't PADI), but she was clueless under the water. She didn't have enough weight on her belt and couldn't stay under. She kept popping to the surface like a balloon. I swam over to her, trying to get her farther down where I figured the pressure would compensate for the lack of weight on her belt and kind of hold her down. I realized at that point that she was inflating her BCD rather than deflating it, so I showed her the proper way to do it but she still couldn't get down. Steve and I had her by the hand and took her down 5m or so, at which point we let go and she floated topside like one of those plastic scuba divers people put in their fish tanks without so much as a kick of her flippers in an attempt to stay submerged. Very annoying. We surfaced, told her to go back to the boat, and continued the dive. Didn't see much, but a lot of cool coral. 37 minute dive.

By now the storm had upgraded to almost a full-blown cyclone. The skipper came downstairs and told us it was too dangerous to try to move the boat, so we'd have to stay put. Since we couldn't go anywhere, let's go diving! We geared up again and got ready to jump in the water. As we were standing at the stern about to jump in, the skipper came down and told us to wait. He brought us each a glowstick to keep in our pockets "in case you guys surface and we can't see you in this weather." Well that made me feel all nice and comfortable…

As unpleasant as life on the surface was, underwater was warm and calm. We did much better on this dive and got to see another Giant Clam, another large turtle, and one black-tip reef shark (3.5 footer). Stayed down for 48 minutes as well; very solid dive.

That night, after dinner, it was time for a night dive. None of the other certified divers were going, including my dive buddy. The advanced class (3 people) was going down to practice underwater navigation at night. I was invited to join; I'd just have to wait for a few minutes while they practiced a navigation drill. It was absolutely incredible. Diving at night was extremely disorienting. It was tough to get the hang of the navigation when your vision is limited to how far your flashlight penetrates the darkness. We saw 3 sharks on that dive, each of the 3 main types of reef sharks: white-tip, black-tip, and grey. They're attracted to the light from the flashlights, and will suddenly appear in your beam as you scan the darkness around you. It's pretty creepy to see them appear out of nowhere, gliding silently through the water.

At one point, the advanced instructor stopped and had us all gather around. I didn't realize it at the time, but he was trying to get his bearings to the boat. We all turned off our flashlights so we could see the glow from the boat and know our way back. But as soon as all those flashlights turned off it was a disconcerting feeling to be suddenly enveloped in darkness, seeing only the pink haze of the glowsticks attached to our tanks.

We started making our way back to the boat, and I realized that as my flashlight scanned the coral all around me, there were hundreds of tiny little eyes peering back at me. Turned out they were little crustaceans, but it was really cool seeing them all like that.

The next day we were able to move to new dive sites and we went to another area of Milln Reef. Our morning dive was at 7:41. Only got 34 minutes of dive time, but saw a big blue butterfly fish that was easily the size of my head, 3 rays, and one shark. I think the shark was a white-tip, but I only caught a glimpse of him. The visibility underwater had deteriorated to only about 7 meters.

With the sea constantly churning because of the weather and the 24-hour downpours mixing with the salty seawater, the visibility wasn't that great. Normally we'd get a few more meters visibility, along with the sun shining through the water, illuminating all the different colors of the coral and fish. But it was ok, there was absolutely no reason to complain; this was easily still the best dive experience I'd ever had.

Second dive was at 11:06, lasted 41 minutes, and I saw 4 Green Turtles, 3 rays, 1 Giant Clam, 1 Trumpetfish. This dive was notable also because Steve and I became a bit disoriented and eventually realized we were completely lost. We surfaced with 50 Bar in the tank and realized we had to kick a good 250 meters back to the boat. Very tiring.

For the third dive on day 2, we moved to another reef altogether, called Flynn Reef. Dive started at 3:31 and lasted 46 minutes. I saw 2 Giant Clams, 1 ray, 3 green turtles, 1 black tip reef shark, 2 pufferfish, and one giant Maori Wrasse. The Maori Wrasse is absolutely enormous.

Obviously not my photo...but this is the size of the Maori Wrasse

That third dive was absolutely amazing. The location on Flynn Reef was like an underwater jungle gym. Mazes of coral, caves, huge crevices, columns that reached to the surface, the works. We headed out, got lost, and ended up in some really shallow coral areas--which is dangerous because the current can smash you against the sharp coral. We turned back, found some caves and massive crevices, ducking and diving around coral outgrowths, and suddenly wound up at the bottom of the buoy line. Very fortunate. We ascended along the line back to the boat.

The night dive on day 2 was very interesting as well. For some reason, all the certified divers looked to me to lead them and navigate the reef. They all walked up and said, "we're not really comfortable navigating by ourselves at night...can we come with you?" I made clear that the only night dive I'd ever been on was yesterday, but they all seemed to think I knew what I was doing, which I didn't. I had my whole rig on and was preparing to jump in the water when I realized there was a large grey reef shark right below me, circling under the boat. I just kind of prayed, "please don't let me jump on a shark right now..." and stepped off the boat into the water. 2 of the other 4 people following me joined me and we fought the current over to the buoy line.

The other two jumped in but were unable to fight the current to get to us. So there I was, stranded on the buoy line with two other people getting trashed around in the surf and attempting to hold ourselves in place. I didn't want to separate from the other people that were struggling with the current so I swam back to them, helped them get back to the boat safely (they were slowly getting swept off the reef), where they decided they weren't gonna join us.

I swam back to my two amigos stranded on the buoy line and we finally descended. That whole trek against the current trying to help out those people cost me half my air supply and our jump start on Team Deutschland, who were also going on the night dive with their instructor.

My group reached the bottom and proceeded out along our dive plan. At a certain point I was having trouble seeing ahead of me, as I was being cast in shadow. I turned around and there was all of Team Deutschland shining their flashlights at me. To make things even more confusing, they all were using green glowsticks, the same color my group and I were using. I couldn't recognize anyone. It's hard enough recognizing a diver underwater. Add no light to the mix and, yeah, bad situation.

I stopped to let Team Deutschland pass and the two in my group stopped as well. We wanted to separate from them, because they were obnoxious and taking up a big area, so we diverted to the left. Mistake number 1. Don't change your dive plan, especially at night. We got completely lost. Eventually we couldn't even find some of the coral bommies and all we saw was sand. I knew this wasn't good. I checked my depth and realized I was at 17m. Mistake number 2. It was my 4th dive of the day, to be at 17m is completely unsafe. Irresponsible. We quickly realized the mistake and leveled off at 10m.

Since we were hopelessly lost and I was beginning to get low on air, we stopped to try to get our bearings. Then my flashlight malfunctioned. Stopped working. I whacked it a few times and it turned back on, but it cast a very dim light. I asked the other divers to turn out their flashlights so I could find the glow of the lights on the boat. When I found it, I decided to head straight for it. That ended up being the best decision I made.

We reached the boat and stayed underneath it at 5m. Then the sharks started circling. I can't tell you how many sharks there were because I honestly don't know. It was a lot. Maybe 7-10 of them. One big sucker--6 footer at least--kept circling us and got a little closer each pass. You'd be shining your flashlight into the abyss and all of a sudden you'd see these green eyes flash in the distance and then the fins and body of the shark would appear. Very freaky. Completely awesome. We got several minutes just watching the sharks until Team Deutschland showed up. The crowd was too dense so we surfaced and got back on the boat.

The last day of the trip I had 3 dives and saw 1 white-tip reef shark, 1 trumpetfish, 4 Maori Wrasse, 4 Barracudas (scary lookin fish, 4 footers), 3 rays, and a school of at least 30 parrotfish.

Parrotfish. Not my photo, but you get the idea.

After our dives we took the 3-hour chug back to Cairns. That night everyone got together at a fun pub called Rattle and Hum for some dinner and drinks. I had a great night and we all had a lot of fun messing around with some of the instructors and crew in a place were they weren't working.

The next day I flew to Sydney, where I spent the night. Today I'm heading to Malaysia, although my flight got delayed by 5 hours, which is kind of a drag.

More photos from the trip: