Was that a Shark?

(steve)

The Great Barrier Reef has been calling to me for a number of years now. Ever since I received my scuba certification, I've thought about swimming with the fish through crystal clear turqoise water among the coral. Just picture me in a tropical fish tank to get the idea. Arriving here in Cairns, the airplane banked over the water on approach and there it was. Just that little glimpse was enough to get me excited.

Once settled into the Cairns hostel, we went right out to figure out exactly which boat trip would be perfect for us. We ended up finding a host of choices. Lucky for us, the weather cooperated perfectly, with a nice, calm day prediction to boot. In fact, we were told that the day we wanted to go had the best forecast for the last few months. Imagine me not being able to sit still right about now. We booked a ride on the Silversonic with three dives scheduled for the day.

To balance out my enthusiasm, Karen's stomach began it's normal churning the closer it got to riding in a boat on the ocean. She was cautiously excited, but insisted on stopping for a package of dramamine. I threw in a package of ginger cookies and some ginger beer for good measure.

The bus picked us up at 6:45 am for our ride to the marina. We snaked all over town finding bleary-eyed people for the next 30 minutes. Once loaded, we made our way to the boat in the neighboring town of Port Douglas. The Silversonic is the newest boat in the area, with a 50 passenger capacity in the catamaran style (most stable = Karen's favorite). On board with us were about 40 other folks. To our surprise, only 10 others were certified divers, the rest being snorkelers or introductory divers. An introductory dive is a great way to try out scuba without having to go through the full course. You get to blow bubbles with the gear in shallow water near the boat, but get to go deeper than snorkels let you.

The weather prediction ended up being spot on, to Karen's delite. There was little wind and no real waves as we pulled out to head for the reef. For us, the dive master came around and said, the rule for today is be ready to hit the water when the boat stops. We nodded, but didn't fully understand until we saw the absolute chaos that was 30 people trying to put on unfamiliar gear in a small space. We hit the water quickly (I was first in line if you can believe it).

Under the surface we entered another world. I can only describe the feeling of diving as close to flying (with only the sound of your breathing) among wildlife. It truly is being on water safari. You glide over or among the coral with the fish practically bouncing off your mask. Our first location was called Wreck Reef after the small shipwreck found in the area. We saw an impressive array of small tropical fish as we wound our way through the hard coral. There were too many different species to count, each with lots of color. After 40 minutes of swimming it became hard to remember just what exactly we had seen. Memorable sightings were a whitetip reef shark, oriental sweetlips, clownfish (We found Nemo! We also saw some Moorish Idol, Gil), and a blue spotted lagoon ray.

Next up was a short move to the next reef system called Nursery Bommie. This location had a shallow water (~40-60 ft) spire that was seemingly surrounded by schools of baby fish. This in turn attracts some of the larger hunting-type fish. As we spiraled around the spire, we noticed a nurse shark nestled in a nook, a lion fish (with all the spines) looking for a meal, and a small school of barracuda. The rest of the water was loaded with little fish in big schools. It was neat to watch them all change direction together to keep as close as possible. There was also a large patch of staghorn coral with lots of fish zipping around amongst the spines.

The third spot was a shallow ribbon reef drift dive. Drift diving is the ultimate lazy experience, as you simply go down and let the current do all the work. We descended along a coral laced wall and let the water push us along. For the next 30 minutes we just let the fish and coral come to us. The parade of color and life was amazing. Even with the aid of a fish id book, we couldn't agree on the number of different fish and corals we had witnessed.

As an interesting diversion, Karen and I rented an underwater digital camera for the trip. We compiled more than 40 pictures and about a dozen short movies. We have them on CD and plan on uploading as soon as we find a connection that isn't as slow as molasses.

Our day of diving was lots of fun and worth the wait. The hard part will be resisting going out on every other boat as we head down the coast.