The Great Barrier Reef

Despite getting myself a desmond (that’s a 2.2 for the uniformed) in zoology at University, I am a true naturist by nature so I felt that I should be writing the barrier reef up…

Due to our previous nights of ‘generally having a good time’ we thought it unreasonable to get to the boat by the appointed time of 0730 to start our voyage into thick cloud between us and the reef. We did however make it just after 0800 but unfortunately there were some later than us holding up the boat so we missed out on the sarcastic clap that we greated the others to. After a meet and greet with the crew led by crazy marine biologist/entertainment man/chef/El Capitano and general fruit loop, we set off at 0830 into the storm. Cruising at 25kts we got some good air time off the waves which led to some classic American tourist needing to take to take to the side of the boat.

We however being ‘lads’ decided to put on our board shorts and aviators and sit out on front being pelted by the warm tropical rain which felt like small stones hitting you. After a good 10 minutes in the rain we came out the other side of the cloud to be awaited by blue skies and the floating helipad in the middle of the barrier reef. Our first reef stop was Normans reef renowned for its big fish and sharks due to the 25ft drop from the boat to the coral in some areas. Us eager beavers got straight in with our wetsuits (jelly fish proof) and fins on and donned our horribly tight masks. As soon as we hit the coral hundreds of different fish were seen dashing around and in between the different formations. We spent about an hour or two at Normans reef unfortunately seeing no sharks or turtles but seeing some amazing stuff, before returning to the boat for a massive lunch which definitely did not help with the buoyancy later on.

We sailed onto to Hastings reef, by this point getting slightly sunburnt. Having failed to see any jelly fish at the last place and thinking only of our tans, we did away with the wet suits (not jelly fish proof). 5minutes later we were far out over the reef taking in the surroundings, only to look up and see a jelly, Deych and Hubbs played it cool, Baz however took one glimpse and turned around and swam in the opposite direction forgetting that there is a whole ocean to swim around it…we did manage to rendezvous with the Irish girl soon after!

After a few more near misses with jellies we spotted our first recognisable fish…the scorpion fish (once again poisonous if provoked) luckily there is a no touch policy at the reef otherwise our ladish curiosity may have got the better of us. After some classic underwater camera shots some not suitable for a friendly family site, we saw a blue headed wrasse which weigh about 150kg each. They look slow and docile however as we chased it down with our limited lung capacity we soon realised this was not the case!!! We spent a further 40mins or so at Hastings and luckily survived even though Hubbleday gave us a massive fright! As we milling around looking at some coral, Hubbs makes a sudden dash backwards kicking his fins into the abyss, naturally being in Australia Deych and Baz thought it was a shark so legged back as well, but when we surfaced to discuss what had just happened Hubbs says he saw a jellyfish the size of his head, not a major issue seeing as they travel at roughly 0.5mph…a bad use of adrenaline I think!
We powered back to Cairns dosing off out on deck topping up the sunburn to round a very good day out! Tally ho