Arriving at 6 AM at the airport in Cairns Australia I was tired from having two nights in a row of sleeping on an airplane. I made my way to customs and was pulled aside because of a dumb mistake I’d made. I had not seen that I needed a visa to come to Australia. Thankfully in Tokyo they’d been able to get it done for me quite quickly at the airport. However, on arrival they pulled me aside because of such a late application. I was then questioned and searched by the very friendly Aussie customs officials. This was the first time I’d ever had anyone stop me in customs and go through all of my luggage. A few trinkets from Thailand and Singapore almost got quarantined! Good thing they were nice or I’d be missing some gifts!
I got to the hotel after a short taxi ride and realized that I was back in the heat and humidity. Cairns sits on the ocean but backs up to the rain forest that covers some ragged mountains rising quickly from the coastline. I was staying at the Novotel in Cairns and was able to check in early. I promptly fell asleep! It was one of those sleeps in which you wake up and feel pained at the idea of getting up so I continued sleeping well through noon.
Once awake and showered I wanted to check out the town. Cairns is a sleepy town that has been built largely around tourism related to the rain forest and the reef. There is a waterfront esplanade that provides a nice walking vantage point to cover most of the central part of the town. I stopped and had some lunch at an outdoor café but had trouble finding anything that was very much more than fast food. I was a bit disappointed given I’d expected a lot of fresh seafood. When I got back to the hotel I booked my reef tour for Tuesday morning. I’d be going out at 8 AM on the Reef Magic tour and be able to snorkel off of a pontoon anchored on the outer reef. I decided to get some water and snacks for the reef tour so went out and faced a town that had largely closed down at 6 PM. I finally found some snacks and as I was heading back to the hotel I noticed hundreds of birds swirling around. As I looked more closely I was confused as to what kind of birds they were. Suddenly I realized that this was like a scene from a Batman movie and that these were hundreds of huge fruit bats! They were everywhere and I picked up my pace to get into the hotel. At the desk I asked about them and was told that they are indeed fruit bats and that they eat off of the fig and mango trees all over the town and in front of the hotel. From the balcony of my room I watched them diving around with the backdrop to the scene being a lightning storm over the rain forest. It was creepy and cool all at the same time!
My early wake up call jolted me out of bed and my grogginess turned to excitement because I’d be going to the Great Barrier Reef today! I headed by foot through town to the marina and boarded the Marine World Magic Reef boat for the ninety-minute ride to the outer reef. It was unbearably hot waiting for the boat to leave dock but I kept my seat on the upper deck as I knew that the wind would kick up once we got going. As the boat picked up speed the breeze was very refreshing and everyone started chatting. I had a couple from Florida next to me that was finishing a tour of New Zealand and Australia and two women who were on holiday from Brisbane. Kay and Lindie are schoolteachers and had left their families behind for a brief holiday. They became my reef buddies and we spent much of the trip out to the reef talking about Australia and the US.
Arriving at the pontoon that would be our jumping off spot for the next five hours, we quickly got our snorkel gear together and jumped right into the water. The three of us set out, none having snorkeled in years, and about two minutes into the swim a shark went under us! All three of us came up and started chattering about what we’d just seen. Would this be a dangerous snorkel? After surviving the swim by the White Tipped Reef Shark all fears went away and the beauty of the underwater world hit us. I’d never seen anything like this. The coral was everywhere. Different colors and types including mushroom, spaghetti, elephant ear, and many other types. I’d been worried we’d be searching for various colored fish and was shocked to see them everywhere! Small bright colored all the way to huge blue fish…Blue Tang fish, Parrot Fish, Clownfish, Giant Clams and Batfish. It was like swimming in a salt-water aquarium that was filled so full of fish there was barely room to swim! There were so many fish I didn’t really know where to look. I had picked up cheap underwater camera and was snapping photos…we’ll see how they turn out but I know they won’t do justice for what I was seeing. There was an underwater photographer from the tour group and I was able to get a shot with a huge Maori Wrasse fish a well as a Pineapple Sea Cucumber.
After a while of swimming around Kay and I took the semi-submerged boat around for a tour of the reef. Lindie was not excited about the idea of being in this boat given she’d felt sea sick on the ride out on the big boat. On the submerged boat they had a marine biologist telling us what we were seeing as we sat behind glass looking underwater. It was a cool way to see things but I wanted to get back in the water. After lunch on the pontoon I jumped back in and spent the next hour and a half snorkeling and just taking it all in. It was peaceful to be, in a way, part of the ocean life for the day. I’d recommend that anyone coming to Australia do a tour of the reef as the pictures and stories we’ve all heard about it don’t do justice to seeing it in person.
The ride back was fun talking with everyone and getting more tips on things to do in Sydney and Melbourne. I was sorry to leave my new friends behind but I had to get back to the hotel, get cleaned up, eat dinner and pack up for my early morning flight from Cairns to Sydney. With the bats flying by the window and another lightning storm in the distance I thought about what an amazing experience that this had been. I began to understand the passion that scuba divers have for the sport. I also got more excited about the rest of my travels in Australia as clearly Australians are hospitable.
