Hiya! Welcome back to my blog series on Australia! If you are just now joining us, this is part two of the series, part one (naturally) comes before. So, if you find yourself here & you haven’t given part one a read, I recommend doing so first! Don’t worry, part two will still be here when you come back! If you have read part one &/or don’t care to read part one (rude) then welcome back to the continuation of our little adventure. Some of you may have noticed that I never finished our ‘day five’ in part one of this series. That is because the natural split, our time in Sydney & its suburbs to our times in Cairns. happened midday & I felt it more appropriate to split parts one & two at the divide of the flight, not at the break of a day. Cool? Alright, again, if you haven’t read part one, I recommend you do so first. There will be a link to it right under this introductory paragraph. If you’re all caught up & ready to go, then let’s get into it!!! Deflate that BCD, let’s dive in!!!
PART TWO:
Day Five (Continued)
Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Cairns From The Air
Upon booking our trip to Australia I knew I wanted to try my utmost to dive The Great Barrier Reef while we were there. I know for a lot of divers & ocean enthusiasts it’s a bucket list location & with the reef experiencing an estimated 30% bleaching, I knew my time to do so was unfortunately running thin.
I didn’t know how or what that looked like. For some reason, I pictured in my mind that the reef was just like a little ways off the coast line like when you dive in Maui & Molokini & Lanai are like a 45 minute boat ride. That’s not the case. Yes, you can go see the reef on a day trip, but majority of it is a ways out, like several hours. I also knew that I wanted to do more than just one day of diving on the reef which is what lead us to Liveaboard.com.
The live aboard options for the reef are limited to about eight options on their site. The one that ended up working for us both timing & budget wise was Pro Dive Cairns which is a three day/two night trip for around $660 USD. With boats going out almost every day, it made scheduling the trip fairly easy & flexible as well.
Evan & I arrived at the Cairns Airport around 4:40 PM. We taxied in, gathered up our bags, & got in an uber immediately headed to Pro Dive Cairns.
On the itinerary it listed out an optional check-in the evening prior to departure to help ease the process in the morning. That optional check-in ended at 5:30 PM…
I will have you know that we made it from the tarmac at 4:40, to the terminal, to baggage claim, to our pick-up, down the 20 minute ride from the airport, & to the store by 5:15. We made the check-in!
The only real thing that needed to be handled was sizing for Evan’s BCD & his regulator rental. I didn't read the fine print of the live aboard to see that all of our gear was covered, but I probably would have brought my own anyway just because it’s what I’m comfortable & familiar with.
While at PDC we asked one of the gents working the desk his recommendation for food, he told us that he doesn’t really go out to eat much but when he does he always goes to this local Thai restaurant down the street called Lanna Thai.
We still had all of our luggage & were only about a fifteen minute walk from our hotel, the Doubletree by Hilton Cairns, so we opted to walk instead of trying to call another Uber XL for all of our gear & baggage.
Once we’d checked into our hotel & had gotten our things situated we decided that food needed to be our next priority. We went with the staff suggestion of Lanna Thai & walked the fifteen minutes back by the dive shop to the restaurant just a block down the street. Spotting a massive flying fox overhead along the way!
Lanna Thai sits in the middle of a row of shops. It has about ten to twelve tables indoors & a line of them outside as well. You walk in & are greeted at the host stand before being shown to a table, pretty standard. The difference is that once you are sat, you then return to the host stand to give your entire order. It’s an interesting mix of traditional style dining & takeout.
Evan & I ordered Panang Curry, Pad See Ew, Curry Puffs, & Chicken Satay to share. I think our favorite amongst the set was the Pad See Ew & the Curry Puffs though all of what we had was excellent. After dinner my sweet tooth kicked in & my dessert stomach needed filling so off we went in search of desserts.
I am a dessert person. Truly. I want dessert after dinner. Usually I’m pretty good with just ice cream, but the need is great following my savory courses. All of the ice cream places that we found, that said they were open, were back by towards water.
As we got closer & closer to the water the noise & the people grew exponentially. We had found all of the tourists & man, what a tourist trap it all was. I equated the area we had wandered into to a Florida beach town or like Venice Beach in LA. There were kitschy souvenir shops, soulless eateries, trinkets, the same six $5 t-shirts or beach towels & swarms of people, all whom were a little too comfortable in other people’s personal space for my liking.
We ended up at a Night Market, why we thought there’d be a reprieve from the amount of people within, I’m not sure, but in we went. Right near the entrance to the night market was a stall selling all things mango aptly called, The Mango Bar. When I say it was everything mango, I mean it was everything mango; mango sorbet, mango smoothies, mango cake, dried mango, etc., etc., etc., etc. We made a stressful lap around the market before deciding upon The Mango Bar & getting a fresh Mango Sundae!
I’m glad we found The Mango Bar because the gelatoria around the corner we were planning to walk to was a mad house.
We took our mango sundaes & walked along the boardwalk back towards the hotel, pausing only to have our ears accosted by one of the most prehistoric looking birds I’ve ever seen; the Bush Stone-Curlew, whose cry sounds like a woman wailing. I’ll link a video of the sound below.
We did manage to find our way back to the hotel, despite the terror in the night, & once we were back we started putting together day bags to take onto the boat.
Pro Dive had advised us that our bags would be too big, but they offered storage for them while we were away. They recommended about a backpack side bag with enough clothing & towels to last you the three days out on the reef. So from our massive four suitcases we complied them & then drifted off to sleep.
End Of Day Five
Day Six
Our pick up from the Doubletree was early, I think around 5:30 AM. We were the last to be picked up from the group of us & had to do a bit of finagling to get our suitcases to fit in with everyone else’s & everyone else.
Our first stop of the morning was back to the dive shop, there we payed our national park fees, stowed our bags, & made any last minute dive purchases we may have needed. Then we were ushered back into the passenger van & driven a short ways from the shop down to the marina. We made our way around the Cairns Marlin Marina until we got to the boat, the Pro Dive 1.
Cairns Marlin Marina
Pro Dive Cairns has a fleet of these vessels, all the same design, all put into commission around the same time. The Pro Dive ships are three stories in all. The lower levels houses the engine room as well as the majority of the double bunk cabins & several of the boats bathrooms. The main deck has the dive platform, the galley, the recreational quarters, & the two double bed cabins as well as four of the restrooms. The top floor contains the lookout deck, the wheelhouse, & the remainder of the bunk rooms & restrooms.
We were all shown into the galley where breakfast awaited us. There we met the dive master, the ship’s chef, the captain, & the rest of the dive crew. All in all it was about seven crew members & thirty-two divers. There we watched the safety briefing, got room assignments, were run through the ship’s protocols, & were given our safety number.
A safety number on a ship is meant to keep anyone from being left behind. When you have individuals going in & out of the water & a "‘home base’ that actively moves between sites, it is important to insure that everyone has made it back from their dives & back on board. This is carried out by two crew members who go around with forms asking each of the divers their safety numbers to insure that they have returned. The safety number is given before you depart a site & once you arrive at a site. It also must only be given by the person whose safety number it is & has to be given to two separate crew members who check the number off as they go around the vessel. Additionally we were being checked in & out before & after getting into the water for any dive.
Our Quarters
Evan & my room assignment was under the galley on the lower level at the very end of the hall. We claimed bunks, sorted out of minimal belongings, returned upstairs to set up our gear in our respective stations on the dive deck, then returned to the galley to lounge about & read on the couple hours out to the reef.
The captain had instructed all of us to take sea sickness medication just in case as the ride out could be tumultuous & they were expecting some light storms to be rolling in. I took one & was fine. Evan, who had never been on a seafaring boat without stabilizers took one as well, just in case…more on that later…
School Of Fish
Our first dive site was at Milln Reef at a the Petaj Mooring site. We were all corralled up to the top deck for our dive briefing, this is where the vast majority of them would take place.
As an Eagle Scout & a Master Diver, I’m no stranger to a compass. What I am weirdly a stranger to is receiving dive instruction in compass headings. Typically you get information on a dive site & it says “go out here til you hit the wall, descend down the wall to ‘X’ amount of feet/meters, then go along with it on your left side til you reach ‘X’ amount of air in your tank, turn back around & slowly make your ascent as you head back towards the boat.” This was “go out to the mooring block, set your heading to 30°, go that direction until you hit the reef. Look around, see the sights, when your tank reaches ‘X’ amount, set your compass heading to 210° & come back to the boat.” This was possibly the simplest of them that we got. Some of them were three or four different headings to keep track of.
Kohl Tang & Moorish Idol
By the time we got in the water, it was already overcast which took visibility of anywhere from 50-100 feet down to about 30-40. Evan & I went off as a pair with the exact briefing as listed above in mind…we got lost.
Yes, it was my bad, but also, despite the precision, neither of us feel the briefing was overly clear. You see, the briefing said “go out to this reef that you’ll see & it looks like this.” What he & I both anticipated from past diving experiences was that when we were looking for something overly specific that it would be that. We were expecting a structure! Like big ole reef, like a cathedral (large reef usually around 30-40 minimum in height). So off we went in search of this nonexistent cathedral…& off we went…& off we went, all while maintaining our 30° heading.
We never did find that reef. Well, in hindsight, I think we did, we just went right on past it because it wasn’t the mammoth we were anticipating.
Fish At Safety Stop
At a certain point I started to get a little anxious. We were both going through that ‘first dive back’ burn through where you run through air faster than normal because you’re excited, or still feeling the act of diving out again, or recalibrating to all of it. So, Evan gives me the ‘half a tank’ indication & I start taking us back the 210° to where the mooring site should be.
I guess neither of us realized how far we’d gone out because we kicked for a good ten minutes in the direction we’d come & still weren’t seeing anything familiar, so with about a third of a tank left I made the executive decision to call the dive, surface, & kick back in once we made visual contact with the boat. I deployed my SMB, as you are meant to do in open water as a diver surfacing to indicate to boats not to run you over, & after completing our safety stop, we went up to the surface.
Y’all. We were so far away from the boat. Okay, not sooooo far, but still pretty far.
The boat had a little ‘rescue’ dingy that the dive master, Eddie, came out to meet us with. He asked if we were okay, I told him that we were but we’d just gotten a little lost & opted to surface & kick back instead of trying to navigate our way back underwater. He asked if we wanted a ride which I thought meant that he was going to have us get in the boat with him. Nope. He meant a ride that he would give us by towing us back using a rope that hung from the back of the dingy. We both grabbed onto the line & off he went.
Maxima Clam
When I say ‘off he went,” I mean off. he. went. I was struggling to hold on to the line the entirety of the time, to the point where I contemplated giving up & being like “we good, we’ll kick back.” The only problem was that if I let go I would go barreling into Evan, full tank, gear, & all, & risked injuring him. So I held on to the detriment of my hands.
After our first dive it was lunch time. We munched away our surface interval before returning back to the observation deck for another briefing.
Dive two was meant to be at the same spot only this time, instead of just Evan & me, I also got requested to guide a gent by the name of Lao whose family was staying behind to work on school work. I thought it humorous that they had bunched him in with the duo that had gotten lost (apparently we weren’t the only ones), but after clarifying some details about the reef I felt more confident in my ability to navigate the site. Down we descended back into Miiln Reef with Lao in tow.
Clown Triggerfish
The second dive went much, much smoother. We went around some of the shallower reefs & even saw a Clown Triggerfish which one of the training guides later said he hadn’t seen on the east end of Australia in a while! While under we gained two additional divers, two English guys who had just graduated Uni & were doing a tour of Southeast Asia, Australia, & New Zealand; Charlie & James. I actually managed to guide us all with little to no difficulty which is always comforting & overall it made for a much more pleasant dive than the somewhat panic filled first one.
At this point it was time to move moorings.
We stayed on Milln Reef but made or way a little farther Northeast to a site called “The Whale,” where we would be for the next three dives of our trip.
THE Mushroom Coral
The first dive at the whale was off the starboard side of the ship around a cathedral known as “little tracy.” I once again got to play guide this time with Evan, Charlie, James, & a new addition, Amani. We all go in & descended & off we went.
One of the defining feature of little tracy is a massive mushroom shaped coral. I’m not sure the exact type of coral, but it looked to be some type of crusting or shelving coral. When I tell you this coral was big enough to fit three dives head to toe underneath it & still have room, that is not an exaggeration. It may have been one of the largest single coral colonies I have ever seen. Truly a marvel to witness.
Titan Triggerfish
We meandered around the site seeing the usual things until I was given the ‘half tank’ signal & we started making our way back. It was at this point I rounded a bommie & ran smack into a Titan Triggerfish feeding on something in the sand.
For reference, titan triggers are the largest species of triggerfish, they can grow up to 30 inches in length. Most divers will tell you that they aren’t afraid of sharks in the water, it’s the titan triggers you have to look out for. Most of the time they’re not too aggressive, but the closer you get to their mating cycle, which is linked to the moon, the meaner they get & they will attack you.
Kuhl’s Stingray
I slowly backfinned away from the fish which actually didn’t seem to care too much about us fortunately. It actually swam off away from us, which typically I’ve only ever seen them kind of hang about.
Around another broomie we came upon a stingray burying itself in the sand which made for a lovely ending to our dive.
With the day’s dives done, it was now time to eat & rest up as we waited for the sun to go down.
One thing that cannot be understated, divers are a hungry lot. The average dive ends up burning anywhere from 400-800 calories so we usually breach the surface ready to eat our arms off. Especially if we’ve spent the morning with a light breakfast to help prevent sea sickness. Each of the meals was usually full on ‘clean plate’ club. After dinner it was time for the night dive.
Now here is where I get to throw Evan under the bus…but I guess also attempt to applaud him for his efforts. I am an advocate for a night dive. I think they’re a lot like a roller coaster where there’s a lot of nervous anxiety leading up, but once you’re under the water & exploring the ‘coolness’ outweighs the anxiety. Evan is someone who definitely still holds residual fear of water but also a slight fear of the dark. Night dives take place in the water after dark. Additionally, his brand of neurodiversity makes him very susceptible to overstimulation & panic, especially when he feels crowded or constricted. All of that to say, he was very anxious about attempting a night dive, but wanted to at least attempt it because I rave about them.
Grey Reef Shark
So we get briefed. We get told that since it’s so many people’s first time night diving that they require us to take a guide. We are given Eduardo as our guide. Our group consists of Eduardo, Evan, Charlie, James, Lao, Amani, & me. We suit up. We each take turns getting in the water. At this point it’s also worth noting that the storm that had been covering the sun all day was starting to pick up & add to the waves. So the plan was for each of us to get into the water, then for all of us to meet out at the mooring line, then descend as a group. We get in, get a lot of the way to the mooring line & everybody is already doing the ‘I’m actually afraid to do this’ cluster together which ends up with diver on top of diver on top of diver, all of us bobbing on the surface in the pitch dark, battling the waves. Charlie gleefully screams out “GUYS THERE’S A SHARK BELOW US!” Because there was about a three foot Blacktip Reef Shark about fifteen feet below us. It is at this point that Evan throws his regulator out of his mouth & exclaims to the group “I’M OUT, I CAN’T DO THIS, I CAN’T DO THIS, I’M OUT!” & proceeds to swim the fastest I have ever seen him swim in my life back to the stern of the boat & out of the water. I kid not, it took him maximum 10-15 seconds to make his “I’M OUT, I CAN’T DO THIS, I CAN’T DO THIS, I’M OUT!” exclamation, swim to the back of the boat, & get out of the water entirely. Eduardo just looked at me & goes “…is he coming back?” To which I gave a slight laugh, turned to look him in the eye & chuckling to myself said “no.” & down we sank into the inky black.
Great Travoly
There were quite a few sharks on the dive, Blacktip & small Grey Reef Sharks. We did also manage to see a singular Whitetip Reef Shark! We made our way back around little tracy flanked by Great Travoly & the occasional snapper. At one point one of the blacktips even came through the group, bumping into Lao & Charlie, who were fourth & fifth in line, along the way.
All in all it was a lovely night dive! We wrapped & rejoined the rest of the boat for an evening batch of cake & Evan joined us post ‘almost night dive’ panic attack & before too long we were showered, rest for bed, & drifting away in our bunks as the rain began to pour.
Dive Kits On The Ride Out To The Reef
End Of Day Six
Day Seven
Our call time for our morning dive was quite early but fortunately the weather had cleared for the time being. The dive was to be at big tracy, otherwise known as “The Whale,” the cathedral for which the mooring site was named.
The Whale was straight off the aft deck of the ship. I was once again leading this time with Charlie, James, & Evan in tow, I got us slightly lost…again.
The instructions we were given in the briefing were to go out to The Whale & head around it with the reef to our left shoulder. At the point in which you’re most likely just over half a tank you should see a very large Sea Fan, this is the point in which you should turn around. So that’s the plan we followed. Only…we never found the sea fan.
I promise you all, this is atypical for me. Normally I am a much more well versed diver. I just don’t necessarily think the landmarks in question were often as easy to spot as they made it seem. That being said, I was paying attention in the briefing & took “halfway around” to mean that the other half of the reef was close to, if not equidistant from where we were supposed to end up with the fan. So I just had us continue on.
At a certain point you start to get a little leery & start thinking “maybe we’re lost again, I feel like we should be back around by now.” It was also at this point that James seemed to be around a third of a tank, which made me anxious to get back as well. We pressed on, slowly ascending as we did, to the point where we were about 15-20 feet below there surface. We kept going around at this depth for about five more minutes before I decided just to once again call it & surface to see how far we were from the boat. Turns out we weren't far at all! I hadn’t actually gotten us lost & if we’d continued on for another 30 seconds to a minute we’d have seen it off to the right as we continued around. Totally meant to do that. Nailed it. Got us all the way around with absolutely no worry that we’d gone around more than once or hadn’t gone around all the way at all……
Remember the previous day when I made Evan take a seasick pill to prevent seasickness? Well he decided that since he hadn’t been sick the previous day that he would be perfectly fine to not take one. He hadn’t calculated in three things; he traditionally gets kind of car sick, we were moving to a different reef for the next dive, & the captain had opted to let the ten & twelve year old boys on board drive the boat for a bit…which resulted in them swerving all over the place & doing donuts… So Evan’s theory of him being someone who didn’t get seasick quickly came crashing down around him & he spent the rest of the day making friends with the many toilets around the ship.
We transferred, in a very squiggly, spirally line from Milln Reef to Flynn Reef. It is here that the remainder of our dives would take place. Our first stop was the Tennis Court, so named because of the massive sand arena surrounded by reef at the mooring site.
Since Evan was down for the count my dive group became Charlie & James, but also added back in Lao.
Orange Spotted Filefish
When you enter the Tennis Court you are instructed to got down over the edge of the reef wall & go along it with the reef on your left side until you reach half a tank at which point you are meant to come back up to the top of the reef & continue back until you hit the namesake which you are meant to noodle around in until it is time to come up. The dive was planned, we dove the plan.
Leopard Blenny
Nothing too interesting happened here, at least for us, with the exception of finding a cute little Leopard Blenny & an Orange Spotted Filefish! The clouds had rolled back in so the visibility was once again greatly diminished, but one of the groups saw something incredibly special.
Many divers have what is called “the big three.” These are three animals that are illusive or can be considered rare & seeing one is a treat. The big three typically include: Whale Sharks, Eagle Rays, & Manta Rays. The goal with each of these is to see them wild, without feeding influence, though I think a lot of people still count the latter encounter as marking the box. I have seen two of the three; Whale Sharks & a singular Eagle Ray that popped up during my check out dive for my Stress & Rescue certification in Bonaire, so I didn’t have a camera to capture it. My great want had been to see a wild, up influenced Manta Ray…which one group doing a skill checkout dive saw.
Jen & her instructor, George, were working on skills in the tennis court, knelt near the edge, doing river rescue when all of the sudden a massive Manta Ray came over the edge of the wall, swam around the court, & left. They, much like we did in Bonaire, stopped the skill test to watch the magnificent animal before continuing on. I was incredibly jealous, though I guess it seems fated for one of the big three to grace a diver during their stress & rescue course. Jen also saw another Manta at the following site…we are in a fight.
Our next dive site was Gordon’s Mooring. Having gotten sick of my guiding Charlie & James decided to go off & dive together & Lao returned to his family so I was once again buddy-less. This lovely Finnish couple; Aino & Paavo, offered to take me under their fin & off we went into Gordon’s Mooring.
The site is broken up into three distinct sections a part they call “Mickey Mouse” because from above, it looks like a Mickey Mouse…allegedly, a big brain coral, & an area of sand called the ‘fish bowl’ because it’s entirely clear with the exception of a rock that houses a massive anemone on its crest. This is one of the sites where we were given three or four different headings to keep track of.
I followed the duo into the blue, originally setting off in the direction of Mickey Mouse, which apparently we made it to…I never saw the mouse but again, everything looks different from the side verses overhead. From there we turned & headed towards the brain coral, which we saw & then went looking for the fish bowl…which we didn’t find.
At one point Paavo turns to me & gives me a hand signal that I interpreted as “where is the boat,” which he meant as “where is the fish bowl.” Truly my fault, he did to a big round shape instead of a cupped hand ‘V.” Either way I directed us right back to the boat which was probably for the best as the air was starting to run low. Not as useless at navigating as it seems I guess.
Green Moray Eel
We did find a pretty large, lovely Green Moray Eel near the mooring site. It was about halfway extended out of the rock working its way between the sand bed & the rock itself. He sat & watched it for a minute or so before it was time to enact our safety stop.
From there our day dives were over. Dinner was served & the rain began to pour sideways. Perfect timing & weather for a night dive.
Given the circumstances of the night before & his reaction to simply being in the water after day, I don’t think Evan would have night dove even if he were feeling physically up to it, which is a shame because it was a banger of the night dive.
I had let it slip to Paavo & Aino that I was a master diver which then prompted them to declare me the dive guide going forward. As I had basically been playing guide all weekend & the newly certified divers who were onboard wanted to try out a night dive, I got to be the leader of the dive for everyone who had previously been on a night dive before. My group included Charlie, James, Amari, & Lao. Since they would only let us go with groups of six the Finns opted to join another group, which I felt so bad about seeing as they were the first to ask if they could join me before everyone else jumped in.
Bumperhead Parrotfish
Hermon The Turtle
The main focus of the dive was a turtle named Hermon. Now, Hermon is no ordinary turtle. Hermon is a massive, & I mean massive turtle. Like think shell size about five to six feet. Massive. The lovely think about Hermon is they are predictable & they tuck themselves up under the same rock every night to sleep, it is just shy of the ‘Mickey Mouse.’ Another offering of the site was that at night the Bumperhead Parrotfish tend to congregate & sleep just around the mooring site. So those were the two main things we were all searching for.
I started to get really nervous when at around 15 minutes into the dive I still hadn’t found Hermon, I felt like I failed the group. Then I got an intuitive pull to turn right into a small cove & there it was! The largest turtle I have ever seen in my life. No joke, I was floored by the size of the reptile! With shielded light I hovered allowing each of the divers in my group to pass through & see the turtle, doing my best not to wake it up. I felt instant relief, but also dread. I was very concerned that Paavo & Aino would finish the dive without seeing it, fortunately they did!
Feeling like an accomplished guide we continued around the reef til it was time to go back, at which point we ran smack into the school of parrotfish! They were massive too, but unlike the turtle, they were very much awake & wanted nothing to do with us.
After the dive Amani had planned a birthday celebration for her 38th. She brought candles & party hats & decorations & had the chef make her a cake. It was an interesting endeavor. Caked up & with Evan finally starting to feel better we went to sleep amidst the driving rain.
Afternoon Rain On The Reef
End Of Day Seven
Day Eight
One more partial day of diving kicked off with one more rainy dive at Gordon’s Mooring. Our call to dive was early, early as the crew was trying to get three dives in for us before heading back to Cairns. According to my dive log we were in the water by 6:45 AM. This was post breakfast & we were also the last group off of the boat.
I’m not going to list members of the dive party here, with the exception of Evan who was finally well enough to return diving after spending a day deep in the trenches of sea sickness, & that is because there is drama. Oo y’all, there is tea! I’m excited to share it. All I will say is there were four of us total & it wasn’t a configuration listed in any of the previous dives sooooo keeping you guessing here. We will refer to the divers involved as Diver A & Diver B. Okay? Okay.
So. We start out the dive pretty standard, with the exception of Diver A making us the last into the water. They slept through the briefing, came down late, & would get half suited up then have to leave because they’d forgotten something or because they had to use the restroom or whatever else. Since they were a solo diver & I was the unofficial impromptu dive guide of the trip, we got to wait around for them… Finally we told them we weren’t waiting any longer, either they get suited up & ready to go or they’re getting left behind. They joined.
In we went & down we went.
School of Sheepshead Parrotfish
Though he were still at Gordon’s we were actually diving a site off the stern referred to as Little Tracy. Lot’s of Little Tracys on the reef it seems. The site was a short swim over to this massive reef where the Sheepshead Parrotfish school. They were one of the first things that we ran into when we hit the reef.
So the dive plan, that Diver A clearly slept through but insisted they hadn’t but whom I was still guilted into taking, was to go around the edge of Little Tracy with it on the right shoulder at around 60-ish feet, hit just above half a tank, turn around & do the reef on our left side at around 30-40 feet. At about the halfway point we ran into our first Whitetip Reef Shark of the day. It quickly dipped when we rolled up. Diver A tried to follow it…by themselves…out into the open ocean. We all rattled & banged tanks til they turn around & back we all went.
Anemone, Clownfish, & Chromis at the Fish Bowl
Remember in the previous paragraph when I said “go around at 60, then come up to about 30-40 & come back?” Yeah, Diver A didn’t join us at that 30-40 range, they stayed down at the 60…
We went back around Little Tracy & since we all still had ample air, instead of cutting back to the boat, I took up back up the slope towards the shallow end of the site. It was there that we FOUND THE FISH BOWL!!! The spot on the site that many of us didn’t think existed because no one had found it the previous day, we found it & the anemone there within! With everyone finally in the 30-ish feet range we started to make our way back to the boat.
Here is where the drama starts kicking off.
Whitetip Reef Shark
On our way back we ran into another Whitetip Reef Shark. This one was about ten feet below us & didn’t seem to mind us as much as the previous one. That was until Diver A took off after it once again, urging one of us to get their picture with it, but the shark couldn’t be bothered & chuckin’ up the deuces, swam off into deeper water…which the diver continued to follow it into.
At this point I had just decided that my consistent insistence for them to come join the rest of our group at the depth we were gradually ascending from was going to go unanswered. We got back to the boat where a drop bar sat in the water at fifteen feet for people to hold onto during their safety stop. The three of us who are not down at 40-50 feet are making any noise we can to get the other diver’s attention who is now just chillin’ a good 25-35 feet below us. We keep giving the signal to ‘come up’ the signal for ‘safety stop’ nothing is happening. I start to worry that Diver A may be experiencing Narcosis at which point & I am preparing to have to initiate a rescue, which could have been avoided if they’d have stayed with the group… It is at this point that Diver A just calls it. They kick up from 40-50 feet all the way to the surface, not a safety stop or a slow ascent in sight. Up & back into the boat they go. We are all stunned.
Diver B wraps their safety stop & goes up. I, as someone guiding & as a master diver, will typically try to be first in & last out just to make sure everyone else got along okay. What I surface to is a screaming match happening between Diver A & Diver B on the aft dive deck with Eduardo, one of the instructors & crew, in the middle trying to mediate & break it up.
Evan had surfaced around the time that Diver B started getting out of the water so he saw the entirety. That was not who I got the story from first.
I first got the story from Diver A when I got back onto the ship. At this point Diver B had gone off to take off gear & I guess Diver A was waiting around for me to have someone to rat them out to. They came up to me, literally as I’m climbing out of the water & start complaining to me about how Diver B has no business telling them what to do, how they think Diver B must be a novice because they don’t know anything about diving (I know Diver B had a much higher cert than A,) how they, Diver A, are an instructor, so they know what you’re doing & talking about (they aren’t), & how I, as the guide & as a master diver should be so upset with Diver B & report them to PADI. They didn't let me get a word in but before I knew it they had stormed off, leaving a trail of gear for everyone else to pick up in their wake.
After I set my gear down I walked over to Diver B, asked if they were okay, got the story from them, then also from Evan, & also from anyone else who was around to see it. This is what they say happened:
-Diver A gets out of the water all pissed, cursing Diver B out, ranting to Eduardo about them.
-Diver B gets out, is immediately verbally assaulted by Diver A who is going on about how incompetent they are, how they know more than Diver B.
-They argue over all of the points I listed above; skipping the briefing, making us wait, not diving safely or sticking to the plan, not ascending slowly, not doing a safety stop at all. Diver B drives home how Diver A’s actions put all of us at risk, endanger not only themselves but the other divers, & talk about how their actions had the potential to damage the reputation or livelihood not only of me but also the dive company at large. All valid points.
That was the last we heard of it other than me talking to Eddie the dive master on board to report the incident & filling in anyone who was around & overheard everything on what happened. Naturally Diver A was not assigned to me for the last dive.
At this point we had shifted away from Gordon’s & had moved on to a site called Coral Gardens. Evan decided following the drama of the previous dive that he was done, he’d had enough, even though he actually greatly enjoyed the morning dive all things considered. So I once again extended myself back to the Finns, Paavo & Aino, who became my dive buddies again. In addition to the duo, Jen extended interest in diving with us. She had just finished out her Stress & Rescue course & was now free to wrap up the rest of her dives as she saw fit, so she became the fourth member of our party.
The dive plan for Coral Gardens was kind of the opposite of the Tennis Court the day prior, the sites were similar in design as well. Instead of descending & diving with the wall on our left we were to do the wall on the right, crest the top, & return to the sand beds to swim around & look at things. All in all I think it may have been the most pleasant dive of the trip. All parties involved were very relaxed & enjoying the dive. The sun even came out about halfway through it!
Blue Spotted Rabbitfish
Semicircled Angelfish
Maxima Clam
I think I was much more relaxed too because it allowed me to actually take the time to look for things hidden in the rocks & not worry about what a million people were doing or if we were lost. We saw a number of stunning Maxima Clams, a number of different pufferfish, a Flower Cod, some Blue-spotted Rabbitfish, & even a Semicircled Angelfish fighting with a Damselfish over the Damsel’s eggs. Unfortunately about the point where we returned to the sand beds my Oceanic+ Dive Housing decided to glitch, but it allowed me just to enjoy the dive even further without the pressure of taking content. Coral Gardens was a really solid site with some really competent & enjoyable divers to end the trip on.
The boat had one more dive planned at the same site but I was encroaching on the 18-24 hour ‘no-fly’ time if I went on it so I opted just to end our trip on a higher note & not try to jeopardize that.
The rain also didn’t hold off for long. By the time the last dive had started it was once again pouring sideways which it would do the whole way back right up until about the last hour of our trek.
On our way back we were asked to do a few things, clean up & repack our rooms, wash & repack our gear, & assemble everything on the deck. Lunch was also served during this time. At one point while I was packing up my gear on the dive deck I heard Charlie call from the upper deck about a Dolphin. Sure enough, in the wake of the boat, jumping in & out of the water, was a dolphin! It didn’t stay long, but it was worth standing out in the rain to catch.
We made it back to Cairns around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. From there we departed via passenger van & were taken back to the Dive Shop to settle up any costs we may have accrued along the way, before we all bid each other farewell & were driven to our respective hotels.
Evan & I were staying at the Hilton Cairns, right on off of the marina. Since we paid with points they actually ended up upgrading us to one of the King Executive Suites with a balcony overlooking Trinity Inlet & Grey Peaks National Park. We rewashed out gear once again & hung it out to dry as best we could from our covered balcony using the railing & the furniture to drape over.
Wattle Seed Damper
For dinner I had found us a restaurant called Ochre that offered a modern spin on Aboriginal foods native to Australia, or as the locals call it, Bush Tucker. Aside from being an incredible name for an Australian Drag Queen, bush tucker consists of the fruits, proteins, nuts, & vegetation native to all the different regions of Australia & Ochre offers a prefix menu that showcases all of them! Which is what Evan & I ordered.
Antipasto Plate
The dinner came with the following: a Wattle Seed Damper with Native Dukka & Olive Oil, the Australian Antipasto Plate with Lemon Aspen & Beetroot Gravlax, Emu Wontons with Davidson Plum, Wild Spice Kangaroo with Rosella Relish, & Smoked Crocodile with Finger Lime. The menu also included Salt & Pepper Leaf Crocodile & Prawns with Vietnamese Pickles & Lemon Aspen Sambal, Char Grilled Kangaroo Sirloin with Sweet Potato Dauphinoise, Bok Choy, Quandong, & Chilli Sauce, & Local Tablelands Beef Tenderloin. We also added an order of Roasted New Potatoes with Duck Fat, Rosemary, & Sea Salt & an order of their Secret Spice Fries with Garlic Mayo. Finally for dessert we were given a Wattleseed Pavlova with Davidson Plum & Macadamia Nut Biscotti & Quandong Sorbet.
I know, I just threw a lot at you. There’s a lot there that I am sure a non-Australia audience has no idea about, which to be fair, neither did we, nor do I fully understand the extent of all we ate. Luckily Ochre offers a companion guide with can be found at the link below!
Forward To Back: Beef Tenderloin, Bok Choy, Kangaroo Sirloin
Out of all the things that we ate I think that our favorites were the Spice Kangaroo, the Tenderloin, the Wattle Damper, & the New Potato. I quite liked the smoked Crocodile, but Evan was less inclined towards it. Additionally we both got two cocktails, each of which was exceptional! I got the Tropical Fruits Daiquiri which had about five or six different tropical fruits in it & a frozen Lychee/Gin drink.
I unfortunately missed the most exciting part of dinner while I was in the restroom. I got a text about the time I was washing my hands that said “get back here asap, you’re missing it.” What was I missing? Well, it seems that in my absence the Danish family behind us had begun to order dinner; father, mother, two children under 10. When the parents ordered kangaroo the children proceeded to stand up on their chairs & scream, full volume, at their parents expressing their distain & distaste for the order place. This continued apparently for a minute or so. I missed the entirety of it.
We paid our tab & made our short walk back through the rain to our hotel where it wasn’t long before we were both down for the count & had drifted off to sleep.
Cairns Harbour
End Of Day Eight
Day Nine
We had another early wake up call. Our flight to Adelaide was to leave Cairns at 8 AM, so I think we left our hotel around 6 AM. Which was fine because it allowed us to experience a stellar sunrise! Evan had scheduled us an Uber initially but upon leaving the hotel lobby to stand outside & wait, he realized he’d accidentally booked it for 6 PM. So we frantically searched for another, getting a ride about twenty minutes later. This made us both go into a little bit of a frenzy as we’d run into the stickler-ish nature of the transit authority in Sydney which had almost late for our flight out to Cairns. It turned out to be fine & the Cairns Airport was a breeze.
Evan & I are both neurodivergent, though in different ways & different capacities, however we are both into fragrance. One of the things we’d decided on was the need for unique souvenirs, if we were to get any at all. So we wanted to find a fragrance from the location we visit, if possible, & a bit of dishware to have a mismatch set of plates, bowls, & cups from around the world. We checked off both of those boxes at the duty free stores in the Cairns Airport.
I stumbled upon an Aussie fragrance brand while here in the states called Goldfield & Banks. I actually already had a love for their fragrance Pacific Rock Moss. Fortunately for me the shop in the airport was having an after Christmas sale on the brand & I ended up getting a full 100ml bottle with a free 10ml travel size for around $100 USD, typically $205 USD for just the 100ml. Additionally, since I’d spent a certain amount, I was gifted a 10ml of Bohemian Lime, another excellent fragrance of theirs, & a sample pack which contained Pacific Rock Moss, Bohemian Lime, & Sunset Hour. I made out like a bandit.
On the other side of the store Evan had found a local pottery brand called Pottery For The Planet. They are an Australian/Southeast Asian based company who strived to create dishware that helps to reduce our impact on the planet. Instead of buying them in the shop he ordered a few pieces from their site, that way we’d be safe to travel without the fear of the ceramics breaking. The site lets you pick the origin of your pottery so since we were looking for Australian pieces that’s naturally what we went with! We ended up with two mugs & two travel bowls that came with silicone toppers!
We found ourselves some coffee, grabbed a bite of food, & shortly boarded our flight from Cairns to Adelaide, leaving behind The Great Barrier Reef & the rain it decided to dump on us the whole weekend long.
Sunrise Over Trinity Inlet
Day Nine To Be Continued…
Reef At Sunset On The First Day
END OF PART TWO
