Great Barrier Reef

Day 5: 2/5

Day five started just as early as day four and the long hours and heavy traveling was beginning to take its toll. Today, however, was the portion of the introduction I anticipated with the greatest excitement -- today we were diving at the Great Barrier Reef! I bought my own snorkeling equipment and got certified before leaving and what better place to start diving than at the largest known structure of living organisms on the planet? The boat ride out took several hours but my excitement made the trip seem much shorter. Before I knew it, I was on a small boat with the three other certified divers from the main boat heading to our dive site. I was surprisingly nervous and nearly panicked when we got in the water and my goggles kept leaking and fogging. I took my time, readjusted with some help from our friendly dive leader, Dirk, settled down, and we began our dive. The conditions underwater weren’t the greatest, but it’s something I will certainly never forget. The coral itself was a breathtaking sight, but the abundance of sea life was amazing. A large fish pretty much followed us the entire dive and while I wasn’t able to spy it out, Dirk kept pointing out a shark that was apparently circling us just beyond the range of distinguishable visibility (approximately 15 feet). We saw some large sea clams and got very close to a sea turtle, which I managed to get a decent photo of (pictured left). Again, time seemed to elude me as 45 minutes passed in a flash. I was then dropped off at a nearby island full of native birds and other students who had completed their controlled dive. We made our way back to the main boat about 100 m from the island and had some lunch and a rest in preparation for our next and final dive. It was at this point that I realized I could unfortunately not participate, as my flight out of Cairns to Sydney was departing the next day at 5:45am and it was already 4:45pm. It is recommended that you not fly within 18 hours of a repetitive dive to avoid what’s called “decompression sickness” due to the higher concentration of Nitrogen in the blood, which can lead to some serious, and possibly fatal, consequences. The rest of the group had flights leaving around 12pm so they were able to go out again. I wasn’t too disappointed – I saved A$45, I was extremely worn & tired, I had seen what I came to see, and more importantly, I plan on doing much more diving throughout the duration of my trip (currently looking into Diving Club at UTS – I’ll keep you posted). Anyways, I did a bit of snorkeling while the rest finished their second dive and an hour later we embarked on the cruise home, which seemed exceedingly longer than the ride out, yet was quite pleasant. We got back to port around 5pm and had about 30 minutes to clean up and meet for our last session. They provided us with some delicious pizza and salad as we discussed the orders of business for the final leg of our trip to our permanent destination in Sydney. One of the group leaders, Andy, allowed us to sign up for a surf trip in March up the coast. He had discussed the details and showed us a short video at a prior session which captivated my interest, so I put down a deposit and confirmed my spot on the bus. A few other UTS students signed up as well and it should be a blast! I made my way back to our room and called it a night at around 8pm as I would be waking up at 3:45am the next morning to catch a taxi to the airport. I had no problem falling asleep after the vigorous five day introduction.