We
get up early and have a light breakfast in the room before walking to the Reep
Point Ferry Terminal, which is quite close. We buy towels and bring a change of
clothes and check-on for the boat. Our boat is a nice 65 passenger
catamaran called the Cairns Freedom. The staff is super-nice and we
complete our paperwork for snorkeling and scuba. Our boat ride is 45
minutes, mostly filled with instructions and training and we arrive at the GBR
by 9AM. The boat is not full and we all begin our independent
explorations.
Scuba:
Having never done a Scuba Dive, I was anxious about the fact they late you dive
here with no license. This is acceptable because a guide goes with
you and helps you with all the equipment… regulators, oxygen tanks, buoyancy
regulators, etc. I jump in and meet up with my guide carrying a
large tank on my back and 75 pounds of weights on my belt. This is
the first athletic activity I’ve ever seen where they need to add more weight
to me for it to work right. It takes me a few minutes to master the
awkward nature of the breathing apparatus and get used to it. Also,
anxiety leads to FASTER breathing, which makes it even more unnatural. Over
the next few minutes as I see the surface of the water disappear, 100 disaster
scenarios race through my brain. The pressure is causing my ears to
hurt and my brain, breathing and ears all seem to be working against one
another. After doing some “ear popping” to regulate the pressure, I notice
some fish ahead, some rather large. Now I can add sharks to my troubled
mind. However, the fish are not sharks and the colors erupt forth.
It’s almost like turning on a B&W TV and then switching to 3D Color. Wow. The
colors are stunning. We are about 15 Meters (50 feet) below the
surface. By now, you have to ignore the surface—you can’t swim to it in one
breath and if you did—you’d pop or crush something due to the
pressure. So, you look down and forward and just breathe. Wow.
Giant Clams, huge Sea Turtles swim by and thousands of fish of every
color. The real color of the GBR however, is the bright colors of
the living coral itself. With lots of fish going in and out and some even
embedded inside, like clams. Truly stunning.
 |
| Great Barrier Reef - just east of Cairns, Australia |
The
ascent to the surface passes a school of Clownfish (aka NEMO) and more exotic
fish. You can tell you are going up and up and the guide helps to
regulate my controls. I see a line to an anchor just up ahead and
the timing is just right—after about 20 minutes—I’m ready for surface. The
light gets brighter and we slowly float back to the ocean surface. Oddly,
after above water, I still feel compelled to breath only via the oxygen
regulator. It’s a bizarre feeling to be a breath away from
drowning—yet determined to do it and see the GBR. Everyone’s bucket
list has the Great Barrier Reef on it, so now the feeling is pretty satisfying
to mentally check it off.
Erin
and I then put on different equipment and swam to a more shallow reef to
snorkel. It’s also amazing and beautiful. We spend 45
minutes more swimming the reef with our fins and seeing one amazing array of
colorful fish and corral after another. We eat a nice lunch on the
boat and then head to a little island that has just appeared nearby as the tide
goes lower.
We
head to the back of the boat with our snorkel gear to board the large
glass-bottom boat to take us to the island. The captain pulls us
aside and says, “So this is your honeymoon, right?” “Yep,” we say. So the
captain moves us to his small speed boat and takes just to two of us to the
island about 20 minutes ahead of the big boat. At the island, he
passes us a towel with two small Champagne bottles and two Champagne
flutes. Wow. Really? Truly awesome touch by the
captain!!! Wowzers. Nice touch. Erin and I share Champagne on our
“private island” for 20 minutes until 40 more snorkelers arrive by boat and
look as us like “How’d you guys get here?” That also affords us the
time to snorkel back toward the main boat—just the two of us—and we see even
more amazing fish and coral and clams and strange sea creatures.
Back
on the boat, we marvel and the amazing colors of the reef and think to
ourselves that everyone should go at least ONCE in their life. Now,
we’ve gone once… and want to go back. Just like Cabo San Lucas, “You
go there once… you’ll be there twice!”
Back
on dry land, we shop for some souvenirs of our adventure and return to our
hotel. Our grand ambitions of having a fancy dinner in Cairns are dashed when
we both realize that a 9 hour trip in the sun to the great barrier reef and
hours of swimming have taxed us to a level of exhaustion hard to imagine. Unable
to stand, we order room service and work on photos, email and blog updates
before turning in early again. We have another early wake-up call at
6:30, for…
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