The Reef
Ok – disclaimer right off the bat: I didn’t get an underwater digital camera and so I don’t have images of the reef yet. I did have disposable underwater cameras, but I’m not getting those pictures until mom’s back in Canada and develops them and sends them over to be posted. Instead, let me paint you a picture….
The Great Barrier Reef is an amazing, magical place. Flying into Cairns we got to get an aerial view of that magnificent blue and turquoise and white, and it’s breathtaking. You see the postcards, and you see the National Geographic photography, and you see it yourself on the plane and it seems surreal. It’s like you’re viewing it on TV again, because it’s just so grand, it’s hard to believe you’re there and it’s just so beautiful. It doesn’t stop at the overview though.
I went on a tour with Tusa Dive, on the Tusa6, a pretty sweet vessel (yacht?) with about 50 other people, 1.5 hours out of Cairns’ port. Mom and Emi went with another group to Green Island, where you could hang on the beach if you weren’t a swimmer, but that boat carries in excess of 200 people and I didn’t want to be on such a crowded tour, scaring all the fish away. Besides which, they were closer to mainland, whereas I was out where the coral was a little more robust.
The crew was super friendly and the day was absolutely gorgeous. The sky was blue, it hit around 28 degrees, and the wind was in my hair. The $200 price-tag included two snorkel sites and guided tour, as well as a buffet lunch. The lunch was actually surprisingly delicious. I’m always suspicious of buffet lunches, as they tend to be noodles covered in mayo (though as I type this, I’m not so sure that’s such a bad thing) but this lunch was not overtly saucy, it had good variety and it was healthy(ish). Even though there was macaroni salad, it was the kind I went up for seconds for.
But back to the highlight of the post: the reef. I got rigged up in a stinger suit, a large body condom with a hood. It was damn sexy. You know what else is damn sexy? Not getting stung by a jelly. So I put the mask on, had my flippers secured, and jumped in the water.
Holy.
Magellan.
The reef was a foot, maybe two from the surface. The fish were teeming and they were absolutely gorgeous. Every bright neon colour I adore flittered among the crags and softly waving arms of the various coral. Small schools of fish were going about their business, wearily avoiding this big black blob floating over them (that would be me). Small schools of bigger fish were patrolling the reef, keeping a weather eye out while they swam to and fro. A few fish were nibbling at the reef itself, looking like they were having as good a time with their meal as I had at my lunch.
I kept on the lookout for turtles, but no dice – at least not while swimming; I did see one break water while I was on the boat but that is all. I did see a Nemo, which was cute but there were other fish that were really interesting and more numerous. Then several giant clams that I really wanted to swim into all mermaid-like, but I was told not to touch anything, and I didn’t want to dive down that deep in unfamiliar waters. And then I saw these beautiful royal blue starfish hanging out all over the reef, just chillin’.
One of the crew, who was snorkeling with us and was on the lookout for bigger fish, brought up a sea cucumber for us to touch briefly, and I got my hot little paws all over it. It felt really squishy, like those silicone toys with the nubbins. But wetter. After a while she dove back down and returned it to the reef, and I dipped my face in the water to watch her. She looked so beautiful going down in the water, floating against the reef…I really wish I had a digital to take that photo!
As an aside, here’s a small tip for the new snorkeler: don’t try to look down and behind you to see your fins, because that just pulls the tube down under the water and you end up with a few mouthfuls of sea water as reward.
I signed up for going down for an introductory dive, which started out as a great experience, breathing in from the tank underwater was really weird but also really cool. But I couldn’t equalize the pressure in my ears so the further down I went the more my ears hurt, so I called it quits and went back up. The snorkeling I think in this case was the better way to go anyway, because the reef was so close to the surface the sunlight really penetrated and made the whole reef sparkle. Going deeper in the water made things murkier.
Some people saw a reef shark, which we were told we didn’t have to worry about (whew) and I would have loved to see it too, but much like the turtle, the big game eluded me. All the more reason to venture back up at some point. And I’m defining “some point” as “within the next two months”…
The day concluded on deck of the yacht, ripping across the cobalt waters back to the coast. It wasn’t a rough day but that boat was on a mission, and was bouncing along merrily – so merrily in fact that someone lost their lunch overboard. I was sitting back, gazing at the wake left behind us and daydreaming when I hear a “hit the deck!” yelled out with energy. Everyone on the left side of the yacht just dove forward and under the chairs so as to avoid the spew carried in the wind from the front of the boat.
I sat back down, and pulled one leg up on the bench, my foot hanging off the side, when the boat did another merry bounce and the girl standing in front of me was suddenly draped over me, with my foot jammed between her and the seat edge. I ended up limping for a week.
Airlie Beach
The next day, we spent a wonderful 11 hours on a bus, heading south along the coast to Airlie Beach. The countryside was lush and the ride itself seemed a lot less strenuous than the hours would suggest. We arrived in Airlie somewhere around 10 pm, and made our way to the hostel, where we had an adventure in hostel living.
From now on, whenever something is horrible beyond belief, it will be referred to as: “6A”.
We had booked a private room, shared bathroom. It was a 6-person sleeper, for just the three of us. But.
But.
The room was stripped down bare, with three sets of bunk beds under a dim, yellow light looking sallow and jaundiced. It was clean though, and I was willing to put up with it, until Emi noticed that the half-windows facing our hallway were missing a few windowpanes. Enough panes to allow a person free entry in and out of the room should they want to enter. The kicker though, at least for Emi, was the moth that decided to make a crash landing into the room. She took one look at it, then at me, whirled around and disappeared. Two minutes later, she had us moved in a private room with private bathroom and TV and balcony. We had to move to a 4-bed sleeper the next day, but it was still ensuite with TV and balcony just for the 3 of us, so heaps above the first room we booked. We were ballin’.
Airlie is a lovely little spot, it’s main strip comprised of one street that maybe is 2 km, maybe less. It has cute little shops catering to tourists, and a hotel/hostel/tourist office every other storefront. It’s right on the coast, because the main strip is only 300 meters or so from the beach, which is…postcard picture perfect.
Azure sky, turquoise waters, champagne sand, and little sailboats dotting the horizon.
There’s not much more to say about Airlie, and frankly, it doesn’t need anything else. One gentleman we encountered who hung out with us for a little said during high season Airlie has over 100,000 visitors. Where they all stay is beyond me. The place is cut from a storybook, is sleepy but hopping with young backpackers in search of the beach lifestyle and fun, and the three days we spent there were not enough. I can’t really even think of anything we really did there…but I can tell you I would have happily spent a week there doing next to nothing and still felt that it was not enough time.
One of those three days we took a tour out to the Whitsundays, a national park that houses Whitehaven Beach, one of the top-rated beaches in the world. It took 2 hours almost to get there, on a fabulous little tour called Big Fury Tours operating from Airlie. It wasn’t an ocean rafter (which is even smaller and faster than our yellow bananananana boat) which mom is set on going next time she’s in town, but it was zippy, and an exciting ride because it was pretty damn fast. If I thought the yacht in Cairns left a wake, it had nothing on this. I was constantly on the brink of asking them to give mom a lifejacket (she can’t swim) because I could just see her flying off the boat.
We took a break an hour out of town for a snorkel tour, which was lovely, but the coral down south was way more degraded than at Cairns. I keep on thinking what it must have looked like 20 years ago, and what the coral at Cairns must have looked like 20 years ago! –And how important it is to do whatever we can to preserve these amazing marvels of our world for future generations. Never mind the future generations – for us! I would like to think that I can see the Reef again in my lifetime and still be amazed at its beauty instead of mourning its degradation.
Anyway.
We made it to Whitehaven, and when I say it’s a slice of heaven on earth, I really mean it. The sand is bone white, and has a particular squeak when you walk across it, as if you’re rubbing fiberglass together. It was powder soft though, and I couldn’t help but dig my toes into its soft warmth. The blue of the sky was azure (Pantone Azure Blue 17 – 4139 TPX) while the water was scuba blue (Pantone 4725 TPX), with little white cotton clouds dancing along the horizon. It was warm without being uncomfortably hot, and the water was just like Goldilocks’ porridge: juuuuuust right. I could have stayed on that beach for years.
We had a lovely lunch just off the beach catered by the tour company, which we shared with several goannas, in that they hung out among the picnic benches, and flicked their purple tongues around our feet, which made Emilia’s feet pretty much levitate off the ground and onto the picnic table top. After our 3 hour permit for infesting the beach was up, we headed back into the banana boat and headed back to Airlie. There were several spots I would have like to explore, but it’s tough to leave the beach to go hiking or trekking when you know you’re on a tight timeline. It was a good thing in the end as it seems at the far end of the tip of the island there was a risk of crocs while an island or so over, the poisonous snakes had run of the land.
We came home and sat on our balcony over a bottle (or three) of wine, reflecting on the beauty we’ve seen, wishing we could take it all with us, and thankful that we’ve gotten to see it. Tomorrow we would be on a flight to Brisbane, and halfway on the eastern coast of Australia, and halfway through our journey together.
Other things along the way:
