Day 14 Cairns Great Barrier Reef

Up early – eggs and meat – sun block and then we catch a cab for the Reef Fleet Terminal.

The tour operator was the Australian Down Under – when we arrived there were loads of people at the terminal – I was concerned – how many were on our boat – was our reef going to be teeming with face kicking amateur snorkelists? It turned out about 90 out of a capacity of 140.

The boat headed out – there were 2 stops an internal place called Hastings reef and a reef on the outer bank – not the actual wall but we could see the waves breaking against the outer reef – about 50Km's out I believe.

I was concerned about Allysha – she and I listened to the snorkeling briefing and Aria and Pam decided to go to the scuba briefing. They offered and escorted dive and they were bth interested. When we were filling out the medical questionnaire I told Pam to mark no to Asthma as I knew they would not let her dive if she did. I was a little nervous and concerned about Pam's lungs and ability to remain calm and not panic – and as far as Aria was concerned it is a ittle frightening to think of how little training she would receive before diving. I did not know if they were going to go through with it, but when we hit the first spot I did not see them and there was no holding Allysha back. The best news was the wetsuits/stinger suits were not necessary – they even offered a free suit to Allysha but she declined. They said it was still early in the stinger season and they had not seen that many so we decided to chance it. I think I saw a couple small jellies while we snorkeling but we suffered no stings and got to snorkel in just our swim suits.

Allysha as usual was fearless off she went -dove below water after about 10 feet of swimming and seemed to clear her snorkel when she surfaced with no problems. Her pace was tremendous -I prefer to swim slowly and view everything carefully – she was like a motorboat – and I was struggling to keep up with her – actually I was a little frustrated. I even lost track of her a few times which was disconcerting – but I trusted the ship lookout was doing a good job.

I do not even have words to describe what I saw – it was everything you read about and more. Some places felt like a forest of coral they looked like trees – so many colors – such a diversity of life. I found myself considering evolution and a strange thought drifted through my mind on several occasions – the human body is not that unexpected from and evolution perspective – just look at the diversity of life here – all perfectly suited for their environment – and some amazing adaptations – the octopus that changed color – the white ray with purple spots on its back perfect camouflage – the clowns that symbiotically bond with the anemones – one of the only creatures I did not see was a turtle – Allysha did as she got a free ride in the semi-submersible glass bottom boat – and a shark.

Eventually Pam and Aria showed up -I asked if they decided not to dive and they said no – they were diving in group 5. We snorkeled together – I gave another safety briefing to Pam and eventually they were called. I swam over to the boat and watched them dive – they seemed very comfortable and I tracked them for part of their dive but then went off on my own to explore.

When they caught up with me they were almost in a trance they decided they wanted to do a second dive on the next stop – I couldn't blame them – I remember what an incredible feeling diving was. I did not want to spend money on the scuba – Everything was within a free dive distance for me and I was not lacking for places to explore or sites to see. Eventually we loaded back on the boat were served a BBQ on the way to the next spot. This was even further out and was just as incredible as the first. The girls dove again – a 30 minute dive this time. We spent a couple hours at the second spot and then headed back to the dock at 3pm arriving at 5pm. Th girls dives cost 200 dollars – and worth every penny when I looked ni their eyes. Allysha had a great time and I still am in awe that I was able to snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef – a perfect day – the crowds were not an issue. Nothing could have ruined this day.

I had to pop a few vicodine to allow me to swim but the pain was dull and easily overcome by the beauty of the place.

It was an awkward time – we were not very hungry but did not want to take a cab 3 times – back to the hotel and then back downtown to eeat so we just decided to eat. An Italian place – a good meal – reasonably priced – got some Ice Cream to take back to the room and caught a cab home.

I guess now is the time to mention the sunburn – Allysha and I were very burnt. Even though I applied liberal amounts of Sunscreen my back and behind my knees and calves were burned quie severly. ALysha's lower back too was quite burned. My sleep was uncomfortable and not very restfull as I had another early morning conference call.


 

Popular posts from this blog

Day 58 Travel Day Firenze to Venice

Friday February 1 st . It is raining this morning – we pack up and get a cab to the stazione. Well worth it. We try to make accommodation reservations but we hope there will be more options when we actually arrive in Venice so we take a chance and decide to wait till we arrive – hope it is not a mistake. We seem to have accumulated much baggage and I am worried about boarding water taxis etc. I get the tickets for Venice – we opt for the train that is 2 hours away as the one that departs in only an hour only has first class tickets remaining first class is 176 vs. 118 for second class. We can wait for an hour to save 100 US dollars. We opt not to use the left baggage as it is 3.8 Euro per bag for the first 5 hours – we drag all of our stuff into a food court – the girls are working on homework and I am blogging. Train trip to Venice was easy – I had a chance to get a lot of work done. After we arrive Pam finds us a room for 3 nights through the information booth at the train statio...
Read more

How to Geo-Locate Pictures

Image
I spent quite a few hours figuring out how this will be achieved -for those that are interested here is how we are doing it. The Nokia N73 Phones were selected for their quality camera - and will be used for photographs by Aria and Allysha (as well as music and GSM unlocked phones) in addition to 2 Fuji cameras our trusty FinePix Z1 and a newly acquired FinePix Z10fd will be used to capture pictures. Nothing special needs to be done except for ensuring the clocks on all of these devices are synchronized to GPS time - the phones are but the cameras require some work. Next using a GPS receiver which is synced with one of the cell phones we will simply simply start tracking our movement in the morning using a free program from Nokia called Sports Tracker installed on the phones. This program uses the GPS to track speed and distance over time - it was designed as a work-out tracking device but fits our needs as well. At the end of the day we will export the track as GSX (it can also be ...
Read more

Itinerary Walkthrough and huge TTD list

I made it back to town from Philly late Friday night. My body was still on EST but stayed up late to try, still up early Saturday. Allysha had a soccer game and Aria had a surf contest. Allysha's team played well and won 3-1 what a difference from the last game they played – good passing, aggressive play – it was fun to watch. Aria originally was slated for the short board but ended up surfing long board also. She advanced to finals in both events – the only Scotts Valley girl and only one boy – Nathan, advanced to finals. It was a long day and Aria was cold and tired by the time she surfed in her long-board heat at 4pm – conditions were great most of the day but started falling apart. She was a real trooper and fought her way out – gave it a good try – had some bad wipeouts, emerged with a bloody foot and still decided to surf in the short board heat at 4:45. I was very proud of her – the coach actually gave her the option of pulling out of one of the finals but she surfed both. ...
Read more