Good evening our dear readers! After a fantastic trip to Ayers Rock yesterday we took the helicopter again, but not back to Sydney. As I said some days ago, we changed our plans. Instead of going back to Sydney we flew to Cairns. Perhaps you wonder what we are going to do there? Diving in the Great Barrier Reef of course! So, in the evening yesterday we landed in Cairns after a, we may say a bit shaky, helicopter tour. We spent the night in a really luxury (and expensive!!!) hotel because it was very difficult to find a place so late in the evening (and no, we hadn’t booked a room in advance). But I shouldn’t complain because it was fantastic!
Early today (but not before an unbelievably fantastic breakfast) we left the hotel and boarded a modern steel ketch named Coral Sea Dreaming. Beautiful name for a ship, isn’t it? We were just eight passengers and it felt very peaceful after all the big tourist crowds in Sydney and at Uluru. We left the dock but if we had thought that we could just jump down in the water straight away, we got dissapointed. At first we had to sit on the ship and just wait until we reached the outer reef, sooo irritating to have to wait…
Finally we reached the outer reef and put on the diving suits, flippers, glasses and oxygen cylinders which were included in the cruise. We had a guide too, who told us not to swim away too far from her because the risk of getting lost. Some of the passengers on the ship, three of them to be more exact, had apparently dived much before and were good at it because they dived alone. That meant that there were just five of us plus our guide who dived in a groupe.
Then we dived! It was amazing! I have never been “like a fish in the water”, but as we swam among the number of colourful fish and beautiful corals I nearly felt like one. I think I have never felt more great under water before. It was like diving down into a new world, where everything was more colorful and with sharper contrast than up in our land living world. Both the corals and the fish were coloured in all possible colours, from bright blue, green and purple to even brighter neon colours such as red, yellow and orange.
We also saw water turtles, whales, dolphins, dugongs and sharks! Wow, that was an adrenalin kicking experience. We just swam through a deep, but narrow, canyon with reefs and fish everywhere around us, as we saw a slim grey animal swim toward us. At first the only thing I could see was the wide jaws with bright white fangs. I think we all panicked a bit because of all the stories we have heard about sharks eating humans. But our guide waved at us to keep calm and stay tight to the reef walls, and the shark just swam past us! We saw more sharks later, but always with some distance between us.
We stayed underwater for nearly the whole day, the only time we came up to the ship was to eat a delicious lunch. But as it began to get late in the afternoon, we all felt really tired and decided to end today's diving tour there. My whole body protested as I tried to walk over the ship and I think I’ll get such a sore, but nothing in comparison with Emma who complained that she wouldn’t be able to dive tomorrow, haha! Anyway it was a fantastic day which ended with a great meal and an interesting presentation about the Great Barrier Reef. As I already have mentioned this was an luxury and expensive cruise, so just for us eight passengers they had paid a scientist for marine biology to talk about the Great Barrier Reef and how today’s climate change is destroying it.
The Great Barrier Reef is about 18 millions years old and it’s the world’s largest coral reef. It consists of more than 2500 different reefs and about 900 coral islands and it’s about 2600 kilometers long! But because of the global warming, the environmental pollution and other disruptions caused by humans, scientist believe that the reef can be extinct in a few decades.
The Great Barrier Reef is about 18 millions years old and it’s the world’s largest coral reef. It consists of more than 2500 different reefs and about 900 coral islands and it’s about 2600 kilometers long! But because of the global warming, the environmental pollution and other disruptions caused by humans, scientist believe that the reef can be extinct in a few decades.
It was really interesting and I learned much. Right now we’re really tired and about to go to our cabin to get some rest. Good night everyone and I hope you have had a day as good as ours has been!//AK