Nov 28 2010
Not Quite The Dream Dive Cruise
I imagined Cairns Australia to be a lovely tropical town perfectly situated for scuba diving on the great barrier reef. Although it was cold and rainy. Just what it was like when we left Melbourne! The winds were also up at sea – about 20-25 knots. It was overcast, so visibility underwater wasn’t going to be as great as well, but we couldn’t not dive on the Great Barrier Reef when in Cairns! As we got our boarding passes for the cruise the man at the counter thought that we should go on a larger boat and buy some anti-sickness medication… We stuck to the original boat. The ride out was insanely choppy! The boat was shaking as it bashed through the waves. Scary stuff – I wanted my mum! We arrived at the outer reef about 40 minutes later. I had two dives. The first dive really wasn’t that good at all. There was nothing down there and it was very cold – I was blue all over. The following dive was a little better. We got to see a hawksbill turtle. It was eating weed from the coral. We also got to see anenome fish – the star of “Finding Nemo”! It was still pretty bare out there. We were told that it was due to the rough seas – the marine life either go deeper or hide in the coral to stop themselves being bashed against all the rocks. At the end of the dive the crew threw out fish food. These massive sea bass swarmed in – very scary looking with sharp teeth. It was fun to be sitting in amongst it all though!
We met an English guy named Steve on our dive boat. He’d been travelling around Australia giving lectures on I.T. stuff… virtual computers within computers… I think… well we asked him along for a meal at the Woolshed! We got free meal tickets from our hostel. After about 9pm the place transforms into a meat market… so We left for a movie.
I only spent three days of the eight that I had planned to Holiday in Cairns, and decided to depart for Brisbane.
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