Under Pressure at the Great Barrier Reef

Location:
Australia

scuba diving, great barrier reef, tropical

The taste of the compressed air; the preparation time of the equipment; the awkwardness of putting on a wet suit and having to drag 20kg of gas tank on my back is just a few of the exercise I must put up with for a dive into the blue for a short forty minutes of underwater adventure. Yet I keep coming back for more.

I picked up scuba diving out of curiosity and boredom while on a trip in Cairns. A brochure directed me to a dive shop, where they put me through a medical test and two days of classroom, learning the theory of being a scuba diver. Great, I thought: more study was just what I needed on a holiday.

We all passed our multiple choices test with flying colors. It meant our feet could finally touch water, at the training pool. We spent a few hours learning the basics of movement and handling the pressure in this four meter pool, endured taking our masks while in the water, adjusting our eyes in the murky liquid and mock rescued each other as we pretend to be troubled divers. Two days of practical exercise finally came to fruition as we were taken out to the outer reefs of the Great Barrier Reef to dive our certify dives on an overnight boat trip. Remember to breath, our instructor said, and cheerfully jumped into the water. I sighted a small reef shark as I struggled to put on my wet suit, which distressed me greatly. The assistants on the boat helped us assemble our buoyancy device and our tanks together; made sure our air was flowing and that nothing was loose on our backs, we slid on our masks and the regulators in our mouths, one by one, we plunged into the warm water of tropical Queensland.

As I descended into the water the entire world suddenly became quiet and all I could hear was my Darth Vader like breathing and the exhaled bubbles from the group. We followed hand gesture instructions from the instructor to a sandy landing ten meters below the surface. He approached each of us, asking us to repeat the underwater exercises we learnt in the pool and making sure we still remembered our under water techniques. Satisfied that none of us were showing signs of backing out, he led us through this unfamiliar world of this world famous reefs.

For the first five minutes, when I am not looking out for danger, my eyes were constantly glued to our instructor’s behinds. It’s not that he had particularly attractive bottom, but I was absurdly afraid if I take my eyes off him for one second, he could disappear, leaving me confronting a situation similar to the scenes of Open Water. I felt trapped in this border-less out-sized body of liquid, unable to orientate whether I was going east, west, up or down, nor could I tell the distance between me and the rest of the group in this hazy blue, I quickly flapped myself closer to our leader.

Slowly, I became more relaxed and began to appreciate the wonders of scuba diving. The dive site is called Milln Reef, the underwater Three Sisters. It is so called as there are three large bommies, which are individual pillars of coral collection, lined up next to each other. As we sliced through the water silently, I was confronted by creatures I would normally only associate with biology text books or National Geographic. We cruised through a garden of pink fan corals, brown tube corals, green staghorn corals, grey brain corals and other suspicious looking corals of blue yellow and red, dotted with giant clams, sea stars and sea cucumbers, forming a landscape of outer space-like scenery. I scanned about and fascinated myself with a small school of Nemos and Marlins, or so scientifically called – anemonefish. The bright orange slimies pecked about a patch of soft corals, oblivious of the watchful eyes of a goggled intruder. As I ponder on the name of a strangely looking fish closing up to the scene with a red striped body with two oddly proportioned eyes, a pair of green turtles gracefully swims across importantly, heading for their destination. I suppressed my urge to chase the turtles and kept to my instructor, who was pointing to a curious moray eel, opening and closing its mouth in a chewing motion, peaking out of its hole. I was enjoying myself so much, I did not even realize I was 20 meters under water.

Our air tanks were running low and we had to slowly make our way back to the boat. It was rush hour in this underwater world and the fish traffic suddenly picked up. A train of silver fish sped across our path, a wrasse and a groper arrogantly glided into their tracks like trucks merging into traffic, while we, tourists to the underwater world, watch in amusement as this familiar event unfold in this foreign world.

As the air fill indicator close in to zero, I reluctantly ascend slowly to the surface. A bright half crescent moon was hovering high above, lighting the way back to the boat. Cups of hot chocolate were waiting for us as we settled back into the cabins, and I smile as I reflected on my day out in the sea. Parts of the reefs are dying due to warmer sea temperatures and human damage. I wonder to myself, will the next generation still be able to appreciate this under water beauty before it all fades away?

Further Information

Travel tips: Go during the Australian autumn and winter when the temperature is more tolerable and pleasant.
Must see/do at this place: Scuba Dive the reefs, or if you do not have the time required to receive a license, join a one day outer reefs tour and snorkel instead.
You should avoid here: From October to April box jelly fish flood the shores. These jelly fish are extremely poisonous and mostly fatal if not treated immediately.
Other helpful information: Photos can be obtained by the Cairns tourism board.