Dallon's Blog: Great Barrier Reef

When I was a young lad one of my favorite things to do was accompany my mother to the library where she would let me pick out a few VHS tapes on history, nature, or the natural world. You know, the David Attenborough type stuff. And one of them that I watched was all about the great barrier reef. For a kid who had never been anywhere other than Utah or Nevada the great barrier reef was about as exotic and exciting as anything I could possibly imagine. It seemed like a whole other world. And I wanted to see it! I mean, we had a fish tank, so I had a pretty good idea what it was like, but then many years later, Finding Nemo came out, and my young aspirations to see this place were renewed, but alas I was not ready. Now many more years later, I have finally been to and scuba dived the great barrier reef! And it was totally awesome!

After my few days in Sydney I flew to Cairns in northern Queensland. I arrived pretty late so I had to call someone to pick me up at the airport and had to do the night check in at the hostel. Just so I could sleep for one night and wake up first thing in the morning to go get on a boat that would take me to the reef and be my home for the next three days! It was about a 2 hour trips from Cairns harbor to get to our little section of the reef. I was shown my quarters and oriented to the boat, had some lunch and then went on my first dive! I was on the boat for two nights and three days and did a total of 12 dives and few snorkeling swims. Now, I have seen a lot of the ocean under the surface in the last few years, as it was my job for awhile, but true to my childish expectations the great barrier reef was second to none! It literally felt like swimming in a giant aquarium! There were heaps of fish, coral, and sea life to see. Everything from reef sharks and turtles to clown fish and crustaceans. I even saw the schools of fish that formed pictures to help Nemos dad. Though they didn't make any cool pictures for me...I don't speak fish. As anyone acquainted with the depths of the ocean knows, the deeper you go the less light there is, which equals less color. So in this regard only did the film Finding Nemo rate better than the real thing. While I was on the boat I opted to get my advanced diver certification, because, well...why not?! So I did some deep water dives and learned new underwater navigation skills, among other things. I've come along way since illegally acquiring some dive gear and going diving un-certifed with friends back on Maui! Apparently I'm good at scuba diving. This makes sense though, as I've always felt less awkward in the water than I do on land. So the whole thing was pretty cool. I'm super stoked about everything that I did and saw out there. And the crew outnumbered the passengers which was actually kind of nice. They were pretty loose on the rules and timetables and whatnot.

Then it was back to land. I needed to spend a day in Cairns before flying so I was back at the hostel again.