The Live-Aboard: Part 1

A few hours off of the coast of Queensland lies the Mecca of Marine Biology majors: the Great Barrier Reef. The largest reef in the world, the GBR was calling to us to come and dive from the moment we set foot on the continent. Since the reef is significantly closer to shore north of Townsville, we decided to once again head up to Cairns. We booked two bus tickets, a hotel, and a one-night stay on a live-aboard dive boat during the week we had off before finals began. We figured that a nice dive trip could break up the stress of the semester and ease the anxiety of finals approaching.

So, at 6:15 AM we hopped in a cab and went to the bus terminal, where once again we were camped out on a Greyhound bus for the 5 hour drive north. Conveniently, we stopped at the same place we had on our way to New Zealand, so we recovered the whale vertebrae we had hidden in a tree stump, because that’s not creepy at all.

The rest of the bus ride was relatively uneventful. We kept ourselves busy by eating a large amount of candy that had been sent to me by my grandparents and talking about how quickly the semester had gone, with finals waiting to greet us upon our return to campus.

Thankfully, the hotel was within walking distance from the bus station, as well as the center of town. We checked in, changed, grabbed lunch at the same place we had when we stayed in the area with Harris (marveling at how fast the time had gone since he had visited) and went to the Esplanade. We tanned for awhile (I had to try to get rid of that awkward shirt tan from the last time we were in Cairns) then hopped in the large pool to cool off and swim around. We eventually got bored and hungry, and decided to shop around for a bit before dinner. 


We found a nice store and spent about an hour browsing and purchasing random things to commemorate our time in Australia. Like most of the stores in the area, they had a very large display of Ugg boots, since that is the primary export of Australia and, in some places in the country, used as a form of currency. They also had actual kangaroo skins, which native Australians wear with their Ugg boots. I pointed this out to Maria, and she became sad.

Please don't wear me!

For dinner, we found a food court that had about 6 different Asian buffet-style places to eat. We picked one at random, and piled on as much food onto the plate as possible. I decided to try some Singapore noodles, just for fun, and became absolutely obsessed with them. 


After dinner, we went to the grocery store to pick up a few last minute items, like contact solution. Which, for some unknown reason, they refused to stock in a grocery store. We then had to make our way to a "Chemist," where we were informed by the shop's radio of the devastating Kim Kardashian-Kris Humphries divorce, which Maria and I called happening after we had finished watching the wedding special the night before (don't judge us). After our long day of traveling and shopping, we made it back to the hotel.

At 8 PM, as soon as my head hit my pillow, I passed out. We woke up early to take a shuttle to the dive shop and then the harbor. After about a two hour boat ride, we made it to the first dive site. It had been a few months since my last dive, but everything on the boat was so efficient I didn’t even make a fool out of myself by trying to remember how to set up a tank properly.

We got a guide for the first dive. I can’t remember his name, but we can just call him Scuba Steve. He was extremely enthusiastic, and asked us if there was anything in particular we wanted to see.

SS: People always want to find Nemo. Don't worry... WE'RE GONNA FIND NEMO!!

Super pumped to be diving.

The sea cucumber is not happy.

Pointing out some "Nemo's"

Not the particular species of Nemo we want, but it'll do for now.

The first reef was beautiful, and the water temperature was great. I remember thinking to myself how comfortable it was, but then about 5 minutes later I started to get chilly. A few minutes after that, I realized my wetsuit had unzipped itself. Win.

These parrot fish were absolutely beautiful, but impossible to photograph.

I love Christmas Tree Worms

This guy didn't like me.

At. All.

Ahhh! Nudibranch!!

Juvenile Lion fish

Maria with a large, spikey sea cucumber.

MORE NEMO'S!

After we got out, we were told that we could go back in and do some snorkeling. I saw a white tip reef shark and chased it around trying to get a good picture of it.

No.

Better.

BETTER...

Oh well...

We got back on the boat for lunch, which consisted of a lot of lunch meat and rolls, and soon after we were on our way to the next dive site. We opted to not take a guide this time around, and instead wandered off on our own.

After we finished that dive, we boarded the live-aboard vessel, which was much larger than we anticipated. They gave us a brief talk about the boat, and then the cook asked if anyone on the boat was a vegetarian, or would be opposed to having curry for dinner. I have never had curry before, and Maria isn’t a fan, but we just didn’t say anything. 30 minutes after we had our introduction to the boat, we went on the third dive of the day.

This time, things were much smoother. Except for when we tried to find the boat again. Generally, I have a good sense of direction. I knew that we were in the approximate area of the boat, but since we didn't have a compass on our regulators (convenient) it was hard to know the exact location. Eventually, we just went to the surface and found our boat was actually pretty close. "Oh, that's not too bad!" We laughed to each other, and began happily kicking our way towards the boat.

Any diver knows that when you go to the surface and see your vessel, the actual distance compared to what the assumed distance is always at least ten times greater. But I did get to take a picture of the boat from the water. Which almost made up for the pain in my legs.

We took off our gear, and waited patiently for them to call us for dinner by sitting outside on the deck, which afforded us the opportunity to dry off and get warm. They called us in for dinner, which was, indeed, curry. I tried it, and after enduring a few moments of spicy torture and the death of several tongue cells, wussed out and just ate some rice before going back upstairs to fill up on candy.

Our night dive took place after dinner, and since neither of us had been on a night dive before, we were given a guide for free. There were some grey reef sharks and white tip reef sharks hovering around the stern of the boat, right where we would enter the water. This freaked out several of the divers, but I busied myself trying to tell them that sharks really aren't that dangerous at all, especially the two species hovering around the ladders. I am pretty sure they didn't take in anything I told them, but they at least pretended to listen.


The boat was equipped with a  flood light, so we could find it when we had finished our dive. The sharks and larger fish hung around by the light. We descended to the bottom, then began heading toward the reef. We didn’t see too much in comparison with the life we had seen earlier in the day. There were giant trevally's that would prey on any fish that we left our "torches" on for too long. We had been advised to only allow one fish death per person, and not to kill any of the pretty fish.  I saw a baby octopus and freaked out, and took these awesome shots.

Don’t worry, I sent them in to National Geographic.

We also saw a large eel, which Maria and I mistakenly believed to be a zebra shark at first and got really excited. Though the eel was still cool, it was still no cuddly Zebra shark.

We got back on the boat, and were showered and asleep before 9:30.

Not sure what this was, but it looks cool. Best guess as to what it is wins a prize!