What has Andy gone and done now…?

Well I did it – I finally dove the Great Barrier Reef…and it was alright…

So anyway, I’m now in New Zealand and have met up with Marty, Sheree and Sean….and…ok ok ok I’ll tell you a ‘bit’ about the reef, but only because you want me to, not because I thought it was absolutely awesome and the best possible way to finish off my Australian adventures (for now)…

After Byron Bay we (Sal and I) headed back up to Brisbane on the coach to catch a plane in the morning for Cairns.  I haven’t really mentioned Brisbane at all actually – it was…well…just Brisbane I guess…a city on the east coast…not brilliant, not crap, just Brisbane…ok, here’s one photo of the Brisbane River and some buildings as the sun was just beginning to set…pretty enough I guess…

Brisbane River at sunset…we sat and ate pizza by the river which was pretty cool…

OK…Cairns…we arrived in Cairns just at the end of a cyclone so it was LASHING with rain but thankfully it stopped after a few hours…Cairns is way up north-east so it’s pretty hot and sticky…35-40 degrees and humid humid humid…thankfully we were staying in a pretty nice hostel which was like a little oasis in the city with a nice pool to cool down in…the problem is you see that you can’t swim in the sea because of the ’stingers’ – jellyfish…apparently if you get stung by one and don’t die…you’ll probably wish you had…it’s very sore…I’m told…

We arrived at night so went the next day to book ourselves on board a liveaboard dive boat for a few days.  The boat wasn’t due to leave until Thursday and we booked it on Tuesday so we had a couple of days to kill just lazing around and melting in the heat…with not being able to swim in the sea, there was a big man made lagoon where everyone went to cool off and chill out so we went there on Wednesday…it was also beside were the dive boats went from so we got a sneak preview of our boat…

Nice…by this stage I was getting so excited that not wetting myself was becoming a priority…

So the next day we were up and at the dive shop for 6.30 and pretty much spent the next three days on a cracking big dive boat with 30 other people.  11 dives (actually I only did 8 because I was having really bad ear problems due to feeling crap and congested for the previous two days – good timing eh!?) including a night dive with SHARKS, all our food prepared, nice big air conditioned cabin, and good company.  So many fish, sharks, turtles (I’m told but was the ONLY person on the boat that didnt see any!?), nice corals, swim throughs…just an awesome set of dives in a fantastic location, 60 miles off the coast…

The night dive was unbelievable…the lights around the boat had attracted loads of sharks before we even got into the water so you were standing on the dive platform looking at a shark swim past below you and then jumping into the pitch black water with a torch..!?..pretty scary, but once in the water it was ok…We had been told in our dive briefing that if you’re swimming through the darkness and shine your torch on a shark, don’t shine the beam right into it’s eyes in case you stress it…if this happens the shark will generally swim fast towards the light, ie YOU…no problem he says -  if this happens all you need to do is very quickly turn the torch off and count to 10…..RIGHT…!?…at what stage here does one change ones underpants..???…

Anyway, too much talking – here’s some photos…no underwater ones this time as I didn’t hire a camera, sorry…

The dive deck…

A typical dive briefing…get the picture..??..the briefings were actually very funny – given by a dutch (i think) guy called Arek

Post dive rehydration on the top deck..!!..it’s hard to describe just how HOT it was standing there..!!

My dive buddy, a French guy called Yann

The view from the top deck – land-ho 60 miles away..!!

For most of the dives we were the only boat in the area (I was imagining that there would be boats everywhere and it would be really ‘commercial’)…at this stage though another ProDive boat turned up near us…it’s identical to our boat so you get the picture..!!…nice…

Just a reminder on a street corner in Cairns as to how far away from home I am…

So there you go…it’s impossible to describe the Great Barrier Reef in a blog with a few photos of a boat and some dive tanks, but you should just go and see for yourself..!!..Sal was snorkelling as she doesn’t have her dive cert but it really is (nearly) just as good…in fact I snorkelled with her for one of the dives because my ears were too bad to dive.  My deepest dive was 23m, but if it’s just pretty fish you want to see then snorkelling over the shallow reef areas you’ll see loads…speaking of which…I have to hold my hands up and admit that…even I couldn’t count them all..!?

After we got back on land on the Saturday, the whole group, including the crew went out in Cairns on Saturday night…oh…my…word…I’ll not say any more, but for those who may be partial to the odd Jeigerbomb, I’ll just let this photo do the talking…

I was mighty impressed with the barmaids – they spent probably 15 minutes setting this up along the entire length of the bar so that when the first jeiger was tipped all the rest ‘dominoed’ into their own glasses – I’d never seen it done before…well, I mean, not with THIRTY TWO drinks..!!!

Finally…as I leave Australia behind…I consider myself to be fairly open to new ideas, and don’t like to knock things until I’ve tried them…so I have to say…and maybe some of you won’t be that surprised…that I have actually had a golden gaytime in Australia…and yes…I enjoyed it…I’m not saying I’d be up for it every time, but at the time it felt good and I’d do it again for sure..!!

Don’t knock it til you’ve tried it..!!