Ocean Spray

Great Barrier Reef

Still with hairs on end, I'd boarded the Greyhound from Mission Beach to Cairns and was in another of Australias cities. Though in fairness it's pretty small and serves as a home to many tourists from around the world. Here is the start point for most who come to see one of Australias favourite tourist pulls - the Great Barrier Reef.

After an early night, I got up bright and early to meet my dive tour in the city. I'd alightly apprehensively made a fairly rushed booking for the trip so was really hoping that I'd have a good time. Pretty soon we were at the dockyard in Cairns and jumping on (another) boat to transport us to the Live-aboard boat out on the reef.

Things were looking good - especially in retrospect to my past couple of voyages. The sea was calm and before I knew it, I'd curled up and fallen into a daydream slumber.

The engines cut, and a slight bump awoke me as we had arrived at the Kangeroo Explorer on the reef. I stood up and took in what I saw. The reef was crystal clear and even more amazingly, I could see to the bottom of the ocean under the boat - around 23metres. Batfish and RedBass were gathered under the hull of the boat and made for a great little intro to life on the reef.

By 1pm I was in the water at a place called Milln Reef. The visibility was some of the best I've ever seen, and the fish species also went a long way to improve the experience. The guide showed us some coral that you could touch before it was time to surface and move on to the next dive site.

On to the 3 sisters. Dive no.2 and I finally got to see one of the most feared species of animal life on earth. the 1.5metre reef shark I spotted was pretty inactive and very much uninterested in us. It was still amazing to come within a few feet of one of Earths infamous killing machines. Just as I was getting over seeing the shark, I saw another famous killer. I wasn't too far from where Steve Irwin lost his life 2 days previously when I saw a 2.5-3metre long sting ray. It was the largest thing I'd ever seen in the ocean depths.

Just as we were chilling out after a freshly caught seafood BBQ, schools of flying fish - approximately 50-60, were leaping out of the water below in unison.

Dive 3 was one I'd been looking forward to since it was the only night dive of the trip. 8pm rolled around and armed with torches me & my Kiwi buddy Mike took a giant stride entry into the black. The problem with night diving, is that the Red Bass here on the reef have learned over the years that divers torches are usually pointing at something interesting - ie. little fishes. This was kinda fun almost playing god, but the bass are pretty slow so never actually took any lives.

Under a full moon I could finally crack open a beer on the sundeck and enjoy the last of the evening with the people I'd met on board.

5am the next morning, we were woken up for some quick tea before dropping back in the water for a 6am sunrise dive. At this time of morning, most of the marine life are waking up for another days hard graft doing whatever it is they do best. As such, the corals were absolutely littered with fish - I couldn't quite believe the amount of fish I saw - and the amount of fish I'd only ever seen in fish tanks!

Dive no.5 followed at 8am after breakfast. My muscles had taken a very unfamiliar battering and so it was getting to be real hard work swimming on the surface againt currents. However it was well worth it, getting to see the mutlti venoumously spined Lion Fish. Again, the fish were absolutely teaming the reef but it was a crustacean that won this dives most impressive 'thing' award - it's tentacles were probing the water in front of it's cave dwelling. I got in close in the swim through and saw the biggest lobster I ever saw.

By Dive 6, I'd seen just about everything I'd wanted to, except some of the other guys had seen turtles and I was feeling a little left out. So it was a nice relief when we moved on to Moore Reef and found an old fellow down on the sea bed who entertained a little back rub before we swam onward. We spotted another reef shark, and a puffer fish.

I was a little bummed to be leaving the water for the last time so I jumped back in armed with fins and snorkel. Its really cool how much you can see from the surface, I managed to find this huge yellow, white and black fish that had a team of cleaner Wrasses going to work on it's gills and tail - it wasn't too shy so I managed to float in to about 3ft.

I boarded the KE in time for lunch very content with my 2day 6 dive experience. Though I was in for one last surprise as we travelled back to the main land. Chatting to a guy I'd met, I spotted a couple of Dolphins shotgunning out of the rough waters behind him. They were really playing to the crowd before the boat got a little too fast for them and we left them and the reef behind in our memories.