Australian Holiday - Great Barrier Reef - 2 Nov 2006

We rolled out of bed early on Dan and Rhonda’s last day in Australia, very excited about spending the day at the Great Barrier Reef! After a quick breakfast in our apartment we headed up the winding coastal highway (poor Sarah) for Port Douglas and arrived at the marina before 8 AM. We found the Poseidon, a 75 ft catamaran that tours the reef daily, and got settled in. On the 90 minute trip to the first reef site, Sarah and Rhonda went through the snorkeling orientation while Brian and Dan took the introductory scuba diving course. The scuba training emphasized equalizing body cavity pressures (mouth, lungs and ear) with increasing water pressure as you descend. The Eustachian tubes can be a bugger to keep clear, and differential pressure across the ear drum is particularly painful.

Brian Starts the Descent

We visited three sites on the reef. At the first, Brian and Dan scuba dived while Sarah and Rhonda snorkeled; at the second we all snorkeled together; and at the third Brian and Dan scuba dived, Rhonda snorkeled, and Sarah stayed on the Poseidon, bravely fighting off sea sickness by nibbling crackers. We were amazed as we lowered our masks into the water and entered the marine world, with its profusion of shapes and colors of coral and fish. The Great Barrier Reef is actually made up of thousands of individual reefs, where the coral has grown to the surface. The sites we visited were along the perimeter of these reefs, where cliffs of coral descend 10 or 15 meters to beds of white sand, which is actually made up coral broken to bits by storms. The dive sites were on the outer reef near the brink of the continental shelf, where the ocean depths plunge to many thousands of feet. The introductory scuba dives were escorted, with three or four divers per instructor, and marine biologists accompanied the snorkelers, explaining the wonders of the reef features and creatures. A six-foot shark swam below Rhonda, but the rest of us did not see any large creatures.

Rhonda and a Sea Cucumber

Clown Fish

Dan in the Deep

Big Clam

A woman on our tour broke her upper arm while stepping off the Poseidon’s rear platform into the water. Before long, a helicopter appeared, landing on a floating helipad anchored about ¼ mile from our dive site. The crew took her to the helipad in a motorized raft, and she was soon off to the Cairns hospital. The crew handled the situation very smoothly with little or no disturbance to the other passengers.

The Poseidon crew served us a fine lunch between the second and third dives and had snacks and drinks available throughout the day. We slathered up with sun screen at the beginning of the day, but missed a few spots such as the back of Rhonda’s and Sarah’s legs and Dan’s chest. The sun has lots of power that close to the equator.

After returning to Port Douglas, we drove back to the Roydon for showers, then to Cairns for great Chinese food at the Golden Boat. We returned to the apartment after supper, where Dan and Rhonda packed up and we all applied aloe vera to our sunburned places – then to bed in preparation for Dan and Rhonda’s early departure.