Great Barrier Reef

The last few days I’ve spent on a boat without internet access, so I haven’t had a chance to write in this blog until now, but I’ll catch up here. 

While planning to go to the Great Barrier Reef, we had a few surprises.  The first surprise was that it is impractical to drive to Cairns from Brisbane because driving that distance is like a tourist coming to Seattle and deciding to drive to Los Angeles.  An airplane flight makes more sense on a time budget.  The next surprise was that the best diving and snorkeling spots on the Great Barrier Reef take a day by boat to get to from Cairns. 

 First, we went to the Brisbane airport to fly to Cairns (it is pronounced “cans” with a silent i and r) that is called tropical North Queensland.  A security guard with a heavy accent said something to me, but all I heard him say was “cans,” so I said no because I assumed he was asking if I had any aerosol cans with me (that was one of the items not allowed past security).  I realized later that he was asking if I was going to Cairns, so I had a little laugh about that later.

 

This is a funny sign I found in a Cairns airport bathroom stall

There is a heavy Asian population in Australia and they often crouch to use the bathroom.  This sign teaches Asians how to use a Western-style toilet.  I just found this sign semi-surprising.

The boat we travelled on had hardly any space, but we all managed to get along.  Besides my family, there was a German family and a Swedish family.  The other two families spoke English, and the Swedish family taught us some Swedish words.  My dad and I talked with Sam (one of the members of the Swedish family) about various cultures.  He knew several different languages and had been all over the world.  Sam asked if we could speak any Norwegian, but we only know foods and one prayer.  Sam asked us to say the prayer, so I started and Sam understood some of what I was saying!  He also said that when I speak Norwegian, I get a Russian accent and that this is common for people to get upon attempting to speak a Scandinavian language.      

On the way to one of our diving destinations, a pod of bottlenose dolphins swam next to the boat to hitch a ride.  There was even a mother and her calf. 
 
The boat took us to a few different sites on the Great Barrier Reef, including Flynn Reef in Queensland.  My dad and I both have our advanced scuba certification, so we went on two day dives and one night dive.  During one of the day dives, a triggerfish attacked the guide who went with us.  That triggerfish chased the guide very aggressively.  Apparently triggerfish have a nasty bite and can take hunks of flesh out of a person.  Their teeth are specialized for coral, so they are tough.  Their territory is cone-shaped and starts at the bottom, expanding upward.  If a diver does not realize this, then the diver will try to escape a triggerfish attack by swimming upwards or horizontally, but this doesn’t work.  The best way to escape a triggerfish is to swim downwards and diagonally, out of its upside-down cone-shaped territory.  Often a triggerfish will be protecting a nest.  In our case, the parents split up to attack from the sides, but only one got extremely aggressive.  We thankfully escaped unscathed.

We saw several nudibranchs of various colors.  My favorites were the green and white spotted one and the Spanish dancer.  All of the nudibranchs we saw were about two inches across.  We saw the Spanish dancer during the night dive.  The Spanish dancer appeared to dance in our dive lights as we illuminated the dark water surrounding it.  We also saw a white-tipped shark.  Our dive lights attracted many fish.  At one point we kneeled down in the sand and hid our dive lights.  It was BLACK.  I could not even see my hand in front of my face.  The last time I had done a night dive was six years ago in Puget Sound, but it was not as dark as this was.  It was pretty fun to be in such blackness. 

The next day we could not go scuba diving since we had a flight to catch that day to go back to Brisbane, but we were able to snorkel.  We saw a giant clam (about five feet long) right under the water’s surface and played with it a bit by waving our hands in front of it to push water into its mouth.  The clam probably did not appreciate our attempts to play with it because it closed up.  We also saw a white-tipped reef shark, probably the same one that we had seen on the night dive since we were still in the same site. 

Travelling between one of our snorkeling sites, the same pod of dolphins leapt just a few feet from the boat.  I was so fascinated by these amazing animals that I did not get my camera, but these dolphins are burned into my memory.  There are videos and pictures of my dad and I scuba diving using our underwater camera, but I cannot upload them easily to this computer, so I’ll have to show you guys when I come back to Washington.  The Great Barrier Reef is truly an amazing place.  It is just like swimming in an aquarium, but there are even more fish. 

I could see fish and reefs from the boat.

Okay, as a tangent, I just had to show you these pictures.  I found it funny how Christmas is still celebrated during December like in the Northern Hemisphere, despite its being Australia’s summer.