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Up early again Monday morning, we were at the marina by 7am to find our boat for the day. This time, we opted for a motor-powered boat so that we could visit the outer reef. Sailing was amazing but we just wouldn't go far enough out. We wanted the real deal - when we first started talking about where we would want to visit in the entire world, Mark's first response was the Great Barrier Reef. We had already visited a fringing reef in the Whitsundays but we were anxious to be out in the middle of the ocean with nothing but the Reef around us.
It was a beautiful, sunny morning and this trip was a bit busier than our last snorkel trip - the boat was a bit bigger and there were 22 of us aboard. The wind was wonderfully calm, as was the water, and we cruised for an hour to get out of the Cairns harbour and pick up a couple more people from Fitzroy Island. Then, we cruised out into the open ocean toward the Reef. It took us a total of 2 hours on the boat to reach our anchoring point at Briggs Reef. The water was calm and bright blue and we were anxious to get suited up and hop in. We had signed up for another intro dive and were put in the second group to go out so we had about 2 minutes to snorkel around the boat until we had to get our gear.
Stinger suits, masks, and flippers on, Mark and I jumped into the water to check it out. We were surrounded by jellyfish - long chains of clear membranes with what looked like a small seed inside each pod. We popped our heads back up and ask one of the staff what they were and she assured us they were friendly, we could even touch them if we wanted. Apparently, in this area, at this time of year, there shouldn't be anything poisonous in the water, but their could be some stinging jellyfish, hence the suits.
Reassured, we kept swimming to the nearest bit of coral and immediately saw a small reef shark, about a metre in length. He looked like he might be a baby great white with his colouring and fins, but we knew to expect whitetip reef sharks so we knew that's what he was. We toured around a bit, checking out the colourful coral and even more colourful fish until we were called to suit up for our dive.
We boarded the boat and got fitted with our weight belts, vests, and tanks, and our intructor had us sit on the back of the boat and was to take us down, one by one (there were 4 of us this time), to a weighted bar about 3 metres down. He took the first girl down, got her settled, but as he came up to get the next one, he screamed, ripped off his vest, and jumped onto the boat. He wasn't wearing a stinger suit and was clutching his side, groaning in pain. He had been stung by a tiny red button jellyfish - he hadn't even seen it but it must've stung him then swum into his vest and stung him a few more times for there was a trail of huge welts popping up on the skin of his torso. He said it felt as though he'd been hit in the ribs with a sledgehammer! He flushed the area with hot water, through on a shirt, and suited back up, saying it felt much better.
He then resumed, and brought the 4 of us down, one at a time, and then we were off, slowly descending into the reef behind him. Swimming through the coral, the fish were not quite as abundant as in Blue Pearl Bay (probably because our guide wasn't feeding them as we went!) but we saw some brilliantly coloured fish and amazing coral and sea grasses. As we rouned one ridge of coral, we saw another reef shark, this one almost 2 metres in length. He paid us no attention, just swam close to the coral, looking for his lunch, as we watched in awe. I was surprised at not being afraid of him, we just watched and enjoyed his presence. (they told us to be concerned only if they were 3 metres or longer).
When we finally ascended back to the surface, we still had another hour to snorkel around the area. Mark and I swam in another direction to see what else was around the reef. We were quickly rewarded by seeing a small stingray poised at the bottom of a sandy gorge. He was watching us swim by, not moving. We stopped swimming and just watched him - we must've gone closer than he was comfortable with because he shuffled around and buried himself in the sand. You could just see the top of his eyes, if you knew where to look.
As we continued on snorkeling, I knew it was best to stay close to Beth. I tend to swim off on my own for a period of time but this is when she always spots the best there is to see underwater. I already felt extremely blessed by this point in the day to have spotted a shark and a ray. It was notably awesome to have been scuba diving with a shark.
This trip was extra fun with the addition of new underwater hand signals to help us communicate under water. When we spotted a shark, an open hand placed on the forehead communicated this to the other person. Giving the middle finger meant that a ray was nearby and a fist with wiggling thumb and pinky finger signalled turtle. Finally, instead of giving the thumbs up for something good, we used the "shaka-bra" (for those that don't know, it is moving your hand back and forth with the thumb and pinky out, like a surfer does).
Following Beth's lead, we travelled past the sandy area in the opposite direction of our initial dive to find a green sea turtle. We followed this turtle for quite some time as we were both fascinated by a turtle moving so fast. It really looks like he could be flying with two large fins the front that look like wings when under the water.
After a good swim out, we made our way back to the boat for a quick rest and to check on the time. When we found out that there was a good 20 minutes left, we went out again, this time past the front of the boat. Here we were greeted by a green turtle that was very curious and swam around us for several minutes. He then went out and met up with another bigger turtle that had a small fish swimming along with it, eating the leftovers. We watched both turtles dive down and eat amongst the coral. This kept our attention until a small ray swam into our view. This one was moving fast and was much smaller than the one we spotted earlier in the day. After I showed Beth my middle finger, we went off kicking quickly to keep up with it. The ray was more transparent and blue in colour.
We leisurely made our way back to the boat and enjoyed a filling lunch on the boat. The only point to note was that I did spot a small red button jellyfish near the boat, which was the likely culprit for the dive masters nasty stings.
With the weather and water conditions so good at our spot on Briggs reef, the boat remained stationary for the second portion of our day. The dive master offered us a second and longer dive in the afternoon for only $30 and we couldn't say no.
So after a quick snorkel trip around, we were back on the boat gearing up for our second dive. With the dive master still nursing his wounds, another instructor geared up to take us out. We stayed in the same group as the first dive but went off in the complete opposite direction as the first dive.
Immediately after gaining entry into the water, we dove to a depth of about 6 meters. Going down quickly puts a lot of pressure on the ears so it was imperative to keep breathing and to hold our noses and blow to keep things equalized.
We didn't find any sharks on this dive but we did explore some very cool terrain, including the edge of the reef area that continued to drop off deeper than we could see. Our guide did stop to pick up a sea cucumber and another creature that he handed to us, which was pretty cool. On this dive I learned to read my gauges and noted that our maximum depth was around 9 meters.
As we approached the boat, I read my oxygen gauge and noted that it was below 50. This meant that I probably had less than 5 minutes of air. I checked Beth's and she still had about 10 minutes of air. The dive was about 30 minutes in total and I can easily say that both of us are officially hooked.
I truly loved the experience and feel very blessed to have fulfilled one of my lifelong dreams of swimmining in the reef. I'm certain that this dream started in grade 4 when I did my first public speech which had the topic of "the creatures of the coral reef". An email from my Mom, was right on the mark when she mentioned the speech. (I practiced it so many times back then that I think Jo can still recite most of it..haha).
After another quick snorkel around the reef, we boarded the ship and made our way back home. Both of us slept on the way back which made the trip much quicker than the way out.
That evening we had a nice dinner and a drink at the hostel and enjoyed swapping stories with JJ and Mikey, a couple from England that we had met days earlier. Although we were enjoying their company we had to call it an early night, the full day out on the reef made sleeping too inviting.
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