To continue to play catch-up with my Australia adventures, tales of warm weather and diving the Great Barrier Reef are headed your way!

Arriving in on the East Coast of Australia, Cairns specifically, is akin to arriving in the Florida Keys – which is pretty familiar to me since I spent every summer vacation on the beaches of the Keys growing up.

Cairns is a city built around the sun and the tourism that springs from such temperate heat and sandy beaches.

Oh yeah, and the city’s proximity to the Great Barrier Reef! Snorkeling and diving are tops on the list of activities and I spent my first day in town onto a multi-day live-aboard. Dive shops and travel agents liter Cairns’ city center like Christmas ornaments on a very ornate tree!

Suffice to say the of opportunities to blow through some cash are rampant.  I was actually a bit overzealous when I sat down with the travel agent…with just three weeks left of my time in Australia I booked four separate tours and a greyhound ticket down the coast back to Sydney; I basically gave the agent free reign to arrange my remaining weeks and now have a jam-packed schedule!

Picking a Dive Center for the Great Barrier Reef

I researched companies and then chose availability between the top two options. I wasn’t willing to skimp on reputation chose the best dive option, rather than the cheapest. I went with Deep Sea Divers Den, they have a clean shop with friendly salesmen and pristine dive gear!

Landing in Cairns at the beginning of the summer season guaranteed me a quick turn-around time and a lot of daily dive boats leaving from Cairns; the Ocean Quest live-aboard boat left for the more distant parts of the Great Barrier Reef the very next morning.

Not one to waste time (or that hunk of cash I laid down for it! $$), I was well rested and up waiting for the boat at 7:15 am the next day.  My dive trip was just one night on the reef but a total of seven dives – this included a night dive…not too shabby and a really good value.

Diving the Great Barrier Reef

Overnight divers are ferried to the live-aboard via a smaller daytrip boat; this allows the larger vessel to stay stationed on the outer reef for longer.  On the two hour trip out to the dive spots I found my friendly dive partner, Bruno.  He lives in San Francisco working for Macintosh but originally hails from France.  Seeing as this was my first dive trip after receiving my PADI certification six months ago, I was really glad find a smiling, confident, and seasoned friend willing to explore to go under with me!

Before each dive the dive master on the boat drew out the reef and gave us a rundown on the layout of the dive site, ocean currents, and recommended paths to explore.

I managed some spectacular day dives but I really loved the underwater night dive. Part of the thrill of a night dive is the adrenaline from knowing a shark could swim within a couple of meters of you…and you might never know it. Even with the adrenaline though, it was just a bit freaky and I was glad to have a guide as we used our flashlights to shine under the coral and find sleeping fish.  Our dive guide pointed out what he later noted was one of the biggest parrot fish he had ever seen, the melted rainbow colors glistened as the parrot fish perched for the night at about 14 meters below and under a huge piece of coral.

I cracked up at my dive instructors warning on our night dive right as we bobbing in the water before descending; he cautioned about using our flashlight as a spotlight on the small darting fish we would encounter. You see, if you focus the flashlight beam on a small fish a larger fish (which has been following you unbeknown to you…creepy, right…) comes from under you and dispatches the small fish in a matter of seconds – you literally have God-like powers under there and our guides begged us not to get carried away and execute a little fishy massacre.

Living aboard the boat, even for just one night enabled an educational sampling of varied spots on the Great Barrier Reef. Coral was the focus on some dives, fish another, turtles (my favorite) still another.

The  second dive site was really stood out from the rest for me and lives imprinted in my brain. Just like in Finding Nemo, our dive site featured a huge drop-off (it’s pretty common on the outer reef edge).  The drop-off is a is an endless wall of coral extending downward into dense blue openness and an impenetrable wall of blue ocean to my back as I examined the coral on the wall.

I missed the turtle sightings on the first day of diving and was thrilled to see Mr. Turtle cruise by and around us for several minutes during Day Two dives.  For the shark lovers, there were some of those too. Several White-tip Reef Sharks hover near the bottom of many dive sites.

The sharks are non-aggressive and small, but even so, that point tip sends small palpitations into my heart for the breifest flash of a moment no matter how harmless! As soon as we approached they only took minor offense and cruised off at a clipped pace.

Though I am sure that I could have enjoyed another day of diving on the reef, I was pretty exhausted and completely satisfied with the couple of days I had on this beautiful World Heritage Listed site.