Cairns 3/3: Kevin drowns, but at least the bus showed up

By the time the sun rose on the 12th, we were so accustomed to cock-ups with our plans that we would have been a little surprised if the pickup van for the Great Barrier Reef tour DID show up on time.

Thankfully, it did, so we were.

At 8:00 AM, we were on board the Ecstasea, a short little sailboat with only 13 passengers booked for the day. As we walked down the pier we gazed gladly at the gigantic cruise ships boarding hordes of passengers (including, like most other places in Cairns, a shocking number of Japanese tourists). One, which we’d specifically been recommended, looked like a damn Star Destroyer.

The Ecstasea, meanwhile, is owned and operated by a fellow named Jim, who was classically Aussie right down to his red Speedo. With him were his two-person crew, Marie and Evelyn, both imports from Germany. (Lemme tell you, a German-Australian accent is a thing to hear.) We pulled out of the pier, passing the Onassis family’s $100+ million yacht, and joined the massive fleet that was headed out over the ocean at six knots.

Two and a half hours later, with the Australian coast laid out beautifully to the west, we anchored at our government-assigned mooring with the reef itself visible dimly in the water around us. Then we kitted up in our wetsuits (how can they be simultaneously cool and dorky-looking?) and hopped in for some snorkeling. Before we even managed to get out of the boats, several four-foot-long fish began circling the boat below in the crystal clear water.

Mary Beth and the rest of the tourists fluttered about like seals. Kevin stuck his head two inches in the water, realized “Crap, I can’t BREATHE under WATER!” and panicked. (Repeat.) It took 20 minutes of concentrated effort to dip my face in the water without instinctively flipping out; I still couldn’t figure out how not to breathe through my nose (which anyone who knows me, knows has ALWAYS been my problem in the water).

Despite my embarrassing panic attacks, though, there was the reef itself. My goodness, it was pretty. Looking at it through the water and the goggles makes you feel like you’re watching a really awesome 3D movie; the fish are the same ones you see in the aquarium, but much more captivating when they’re, ya know, in the wild. Some were so ridiculously colorful that it was hard to believe they weren’t manufactured for the benefit of tourists.

An hour flew by in an instant. We stayed kind of close to Marie, the crew member, who pointed out particularly awesome fish or giant clams or whatever, and even dove to the bottom to snag bright blue sea stars or slimy sea cucumbers for us to examine.

Then it was a yummy barbecue lunch on board. Some of y’all will find this amusing: Mary Beth actually ate chicken off the bone. *gasp* I was feeling rather woozy from my snorkeling experience, but Evelyn convinced me to at least attempt the beginning portion of the scuba dive, for which Mary Beth was very excited.

So back in the wetsuits we got. To add to the pressure, we were the only folks on board trying a dive, so the other 11 tourists stared at us while we got ready. We’d had a five minute tutorial earlier. (Short version: don’t push ANY buttons, just breathe through the mask and let Evelyn handle the floating and sinking.)

Jim had us sit on the edge while he strapped 25 pounds of weights around our waist, and a 25 pound aluminum air tank on our backs. Then came the flip flops and masks, and finally, leaping off the side of the ship into the deep water. The assurances that I would immediately bob back to the surface rang a little hollow for me. I can safely say that this was slightly more scary a jump than the one out of an airplane at 10,000 feet.

But bob to the surface we did, and my snorkeling practice allowed me to get underwater pretty easily, though the tremendous number of bubbles I was spewing out was an added distraction. We were then directed to the rear of the boat, where a bar was dangling about two meters below the surface. I was quite comfy there, focusing on my breathing, and we did a couple of practice maneuvers (e.g. getting the piece back in your mouth if it’s ripped out). Then we were beckoned by the crew off the bar and down, down, down toward the reefs below. Mary Beth swum like a scuba-diving duck in water downwards. I was having ear pain from the pressure changes, but otherwise doing okay and moving slowly downward, when suddenly…

PANIC!!! GAAAAAH!!! I’M UNDERWATER HOW COULD I POSSIBLY BE BREATHING!!! HELLLP!!!

Evelyn pushed my emergency air bladder button which shot me to the surface, and my scuba session was over just that quickly. I coulda tried again, but decided that I was more than proud of my accomplishments for the day and would let MB have all the fun downstairs. Mary Beth tells me later that when Evelyn rejoined her underwater, MB was actually very concerned about me. Evelyn apparently flapped her arms in the international underwater scuba signal for “your husband is a chicken”!

So I dropped my gear off at the boat while MB flew around at the bottom with her two instructors. She got to cuddle a clown fish in its anenome home, catch a glimpse of a giant lobster, and in the awesomest moment, view a nine-foot-long sea snake wriggling along the bottom. Later we found out the thing is pretty much the most poisonous thing on the reef. Good times.

On our trip back to the shore, MB was enjoying some sun on the front of the ship when we heard Jim scream “dolphin… 1 o’clock”. We looked up and right there at the front of the ship, 4 dolphins were just making their way straight across our path. One even obliged us a couple of jumps out of the water in true dolphin fashion. I was, unfortunately, too slow to catch the jumps on film, so you’ll just have to trust us on this one. Later in the trip, I believe it was during the cheese course, we caught a very distant glimpse of a humpback whale.

And that was our afternoon on the GBR. We had a great time chatting with our fellow tourists on our way there and back, and the crew were a riot. Again, we were so glad to have landed on a small boat, even if it took a surprise cancellation by our first tour company (and related screwiness with the Kuranda people) to end up there. We wanna go back, like, tomorrow.

Back in Cairns, we returned to the hotel and creeeeeyashed for several hours. Then laundry, dinner, and more sleep. We deserved it. It was a long awesome day.