#15 - Sleep Deprivation and Fish (6/6/11)

Hello again. I apologize for the long period between posts, but I’ve been absolutely swamped. Australian universities really like to make their students feel welcome by heaping on term papers and presentations in the last week of school. But luckily, that’s all behind me. Classes finished on the 27^th of May and we had a week off to begin studying for finals. I am now half way done with my finals and I have a few days before my next one, so I can finally update this thing.

Instead of being overachievers and studying the entire week before finals, Karen and I and some friends took the time off as our last chance opportunity to see some of this amazing country. We had yet to get out to the Great Barrier Reef and we figured living for four months in northern Queensland without visiting it would be akin to going to New York and not having authentic New York-style pizza (Donald Trump, I think Jon Stewart would like to have a word with you). So to the reef it was! We booked our trip about a month before and anxiously counted down the days until classes ended, our last assignment was turned in (a 20 page fauna report on the Townsville Town Common Conversation Park – riveting stuff, trust me), and we were home free, at least for a week. Although Townsville is within range of the reef, most of the major tours operate out of Cairns. Cairns is about a five-hour drive north of Townsville. Thus we decided to take a bus after our last class on the 27^th and get into Cairns late, spend all of Saturday in town, and then get on the boat Sunday. Unfortunately for us, there are only two busses for Cairns out of Townsville each day. One leaves in the morning, and one leaves just after midnight. While a midnight bus trip sounded rough, we wanted to be able to see a bit of Cairns and sleep well the night before diving. So we went for the midnight bus. Alas, a midnight bus would have been wonderful. Instead, I received a phone call at about 10pm from Greyhound Australia saying the bus to Cairns was experiencing mechanical problems and it wouldn’t be leaving Townsville until 2am. My initial thought was of exhaustion, but we didn’t have much of a choice. Plus we could sleep the rest of the week, and we just had to see the reef. So we made our way down to the bus stop at about 1:30am, through the main nightlife section of town (we were only heckled a little bit) and sat to wait for the bus. And waited. And sat for a while longer. Apparently 2am to Greyhound is 3:10am for everyone else. We ended up sitting outside on a freezing bench for an hour and a half before the bus finally arrived. When it did arrive, it was absolutely packed, and Karen and I didn’t get to sit next to each other. Who travels on the 3am bus to Cairns? Apparently lots of people. Our bus home, at the much more reasonable hour of 7pm, consisted of five people, three from our party. We finally pulled out of Townsville at 3:22am. Not the start we were hoping for, but at least we were headed in the right direction. Some of our friends had different travel plans. They took the same bus as us, but they were going diving at 8am the same morning. Thus they were panicked that they were going to miss their boat. Unfortunately, there was nothing they could do about it, except hope that the driver floored it. The next five hours are a bit hazy. I remember passing in and out of fitful sleep. Cardwell at 5am is deserted, I can tell you that much. From about Mission Beach north I was pseudo-cognizant. I do remember looking for hurricane damage and seeing it, but that also could have been my imagination. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a stranger state of mind than I was at 6am that morning. I do remember the sunrise being impressive. In any event, we finally pulled into Cairns at 8:07am, over two hours late. Our friends missed their boat by seven minutes (they were able to go out the next day and their travel plans weren’t really altered at all, so it’s a happy ending).

We stumbled off the bus into the bright sunshine and immediately fell in love with Cairns. For one thing, it felt like it was a happening place. It felt like it had a pulse. Townsville is unbelievably quiet, for a city of 150,000 people. Cairns is unbelievably loud for a city of 150,000 people. We groggily made our way across the downtown area already humming with people at 8am on a Saturday morning. I wanted to yell at the people for being awake at such an unreasonable hour, but I couldn’t blame them. Cairns is stunning. It’s situated right on the water. The esplanade is lovely, with a great beach (don’t swim – Crocs) and a beautiful man-made lagoon (swim here instead!). It’s surrounded on three sides by really steep, really forested hills. It’s quite the sight. The town itself is definitely a tourist center. I would guess 95% of the businesses located in the 10 square-block downtown are geared towards tourist. It’s eerily reminiscent of Waikiki, only on a bigger tourist scale. By the time we finally got to our hostel (which had to have been the farthest away from the bus terminal of any in the city) we must have passed 15 hostels and 15 souvenir shops. That’s not an exaggeration. We put down our bags, and instead of doing the reasonable thing and sleeping, we went back out to get breaky. After breakfast we walked all around the town. It’s a very interesting place. I wondered where all of the residents lived, honestly. I’ve never seen such a concentration of tourism related industry, if I haven’t already made that clear.

Regardless, we spent the rest of the day stumbling around, looking in stores for the cheesiest souvenirs we could find (Uggs?!? In Far North Queensland? I realize they’re Australian, but come on, who’s that stupid?) and generally taking it all in. Cairns is definitely more fun than Townsville, though I’m not sure I’d want to live there. The setting was stunning, but it was just too much. However, being a tourist in a city designed for tourists was amusing and we certainly enjoyed our day. We went to a bar with our friends and got a few drinks before hitting the hay at the ungodly hour of 9:45pm.

At 7am the next morning (you’ll notice sleep deprivation is a theme of this trip) we were up, waiting for the dive company bus to come and pick us up. After signing some death certificates, I mean waiver forms (we in no way take any responsibility for your imminent death; you should know that diving is extremely dangerous, moron) we headed off to the boat terminal. The dive company operates two boats, a day boat that comes in every day, and a live-aboard boat, which stays out on the reef and only comes into town once a month. However, the day boat was off getting some maintenance work done, so we took the Reef Magic out to a dive platform and were met by the live-aboard boat. After cruising 60 kilometers out to see and getting sufficiently seasick, we were off to our first dive. At this point, frankly, I was terrified. I got certified to dive this past November solely so I could go diving on the Great Barrier Reef. Who could turn down that opportunity? However, the last dive I did was my certification dive, 6 months ago, so I was feeling a little unprepared. We assembled on the dive deck and the dive leader gave us a dive brief. We were going to descend down the anchor line with our dive buddy and then just follow the guide around. He would judge our skill, and then pair us off with someone of similar abilities. I was quite relieved that I had someone to guide me for the first dive, as I wanted to remember how the whole breathing underwater thing worked. I assumed the first dive would be quite gentle, considering he had no idea what our abilities were. I assumed wrong. Within a minute of reaching the bottom, we were doing a swim through. A swim through is sort of like a canyon in the coral that you can swim through, hence the name. Some of them are quite wide and are no different than swimming in an open area. This swim through was not like that. If I had to guess, it was about 30 meters long, though it might just have felt that long, and it was exceedingly narrow. At the widest parts it was a meter a half from one wall to the other. Most of the way the surface could be seen, but at some points the coral was at such an angle that going up would not get you very far. Despite my best efforts, I hit some coral. I had come thousands of miles to dive this reef and within minutes I was doing the one thing they tell you not to do when diving on reefs. I felt terrible. But I blamed the guide more than anything. I mean come on! What had I gotten myself into? Luckily the coral was pretty hard and I don’t think I did any damage. I’m sure the fish were amazing if I had noticed, but frankly, I didn’t. I was too focused on not hitting the coral and watching my air disappear much faster than it had any right to do so. Doesn’t it realize that I need it to survive? We did see a ray swimming, which was super awesomely cool, but that’s about all I remember. I also remember going through my air really quickly. Not too long after all of this, we ascended and got back on the boat. The guide assigned us partners and I caught my breath. The boat left that site and headed off for a place that we were assured was one of the best dive spots on the whole reef.

They weren’t lying. Before the second dive, the dive guide gave us another brief. He said we were likely to see turtles. On cue, a turtle surfaced about 20 feet from the boat. You can’t make this stuff up. After the dive brief, he said that the boat had a videographer on board that was going diving at this site. He suggested we go with him because he had a license to feed the fish. For some odd reason, only my friend Owen and I took him up on this offer. And OH MY GOD was it worth it. For the first time, I saw what all the hype about the Great Barrier Reef is all about. Swimming in an aquarium is an adequate description, though frankly it doesn’t do it justice. Apparently the fish recognize the videographer because dozens upon dozens of large fish (>1 ft in length) swam around us for almost the entire dive. We did another swim through (way more manageable and totally awesome) that might have been the highlight of the entire trip. Fan coral splayed out against an aquamarine backdrop is not something that can be easily described. Gorgeous, stunning, unbelievable all leap to mind. We saw a turtle, a ray, and hundreds of fish. And more colorful coral than I could have imagined. The best thing about the whole dive was the videographer spent the entire time filming us. Later that night, he asked us to go up to his office and he showed us what he had filmed. He had put together a 22 minute movie on our dive, with incredible shots of Owen and I with the fish in the coral. Despite its cost ($75), I had to buy it. I think it’s the best way to show people what the reef looks like. This blog post does an okay job, but if you want, I’d love to show you the movie. It’s pretty amazing. Anyways, after we finished that dive, Owen and I decided that this whole diving thing was pretty damn cool. After the first dive I was a little rattled, but this had been way more my speed and I had been able to actually enjoy what I was doing. I couldn’t wait for my next dive.

On second thought, I could. The next dive was the night dive. I have heard that night diving is incredible. The fauna changes drastically from day to night and so to do the colors. For this reason I was excited. But I was also petrified. Jumping into pitch black waters with only a small torch seemed a bit foolish. If I had ever calmed down, the dive may have been cool. But unfortunately, the blackness really got to me. We had a guide, but we just couldn’t see much. We did see a bunch of sleeping turtles, which would have been cool, but frankly because of the darkness and the lack of color, they seemed almost to be photographs. We couldn’t really see any fish. It was just dark. Needless to say, I went through my air fast. I ended up having to signal the guide I was low on air. He sent me back to the boat early. It was a little embarrassing, but honestly, I didn’t care. Night diving just wasn’t for me. I couldn’t stand not seeing behind me. The tunnel vision and the cold got to me. I’ll try it again if I’m able to get more dives under my belt, but for the time being, I’m going to stay away from the night diving. By that point, I was exhausted and a little dispirited, so I went to bed. While the second dive alone had made it all worth it, three of my six dives had already passed and I had only enjoyed one of them.

The next morning, they woke us up at 5:45am while it was still dark outside (noticing a theme here?). Sleeping on a boat had been fun and getting out of bed was really not my idea of a good time. Plus diving at that hour seemed exhausting. But I did it because I would have been mad at myself if I hadn’t. They woke us up that early because they assured us that sunrise dives were the best. Apparently fish don’t sleep in. Go figure. Within two minutes of the sun clearing the horizon, we were in the water. Cairns Dive Centre was not messing around. Was it worth it? In a word, YES. That was the best dive I’ve ever done, and honestly, the best I’ll probably ever do. If there are better dives out there, sign me up. The marine life was unreal. We saw a bunch of lazy turtles, thousands of big fish including a lionfish, a white-tip reef shark, fabulous coral, and rays. It was unbelievable. I can’t describe it. We spiraled around the coral bommie (basically a coral knob) and I could have done it forever. There was so much to look at. And the best part is I was comfortable. I didn’t think about my air, I didn’t think about my buoyancy, I just swam and watched. Owen and I reluctantly left the water wide-eyed. The rest of the dives that day followed a similar pattern. On the second dive, we saw a roughly 8-foot black tip reef shark. That’s a lot of shark. It didn’t get all that close to us, which is a good thing. Those are impressive beasts. Visibility in the early morning is incredible. According to my certification teacher, good visibility is about 20 to 30 feet. The visibility that morning was 20 or 30 meters. I felt like I could have seen Cairns if I’d tried.

Honestly, the whole day was one of the most amazing days of my life. My friends made fun of me in high school because I’ve always had this thing for the ocean. I was in the marine program in high school. I wanted to be a marine biologist. They called me Maritime Max. But they were always right. Days like this just confirmed my love of the ocean. I had told Karen the night before after the night dive that I understood why people enjoyed diving, but I couldn’t see myself traveling the world for it because there were too many things to worry about. It took one day to change that opinion. If I could go back, I would do so in a heartbeat. If you ever have the chance to dive the Great Barrier Reef, don’t turn it down. I’ve snorkeled extensively in Hawaii and it doesn’t compare. The fish are much bigger, much brighter, and about 100 times more frequent. At one point, the videographer gave me his bottle of fish food and there were easily fifteen fish within two feet of me. Several of them ran into me. There’s not too many places in the world you can say that. Diving the Great Barrier Reef was hands-down the best experience I’ve had in Australia.

Unfortunately, real life beckoned. We had to get back on the Reef Magic and head into Cairns. We got into the city a little after 4pm and hung out until 7pm, when our bus was scheduled to leave. While we were sitting on the Esplanade, a photographer for the local newspaper approached us and asked us if he could take a picture of Karen and I all snuggled up because it was so cold outside (Far North Queenslanders have a skewed sense of what cold it is, it must have been 75 at the time). So to top of our amazing trip we ended up in the Cairns Post looking halfway decent despite the fact that we had spent the past 36 hours on a boat and in the water without a shower. Here’s the link:

http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2011/05/31/166915_local-news.html

After that, we reluctantly boarded the bus back to Townsville (it was on time, hoorah!). We got back to our house after 1am and slept a long time. The sleep deprivation was well worth it.

I’ll post some pictures when I get the chance. They won’t do it justice, but at least they’re proof. The video I paid for shot at 25 frames per second for 22 minutes. Each one of those frames can be converted to a photo. Thus, when I get that video, I’ll post a few of the pictures.

Amazingly, I only have a week and a half left in this country. I’ll try and squeeze in another post, and then I’ll have some follow-up posts. Stay tuned.