January 17 - Australia: Cairns
Today we both had a day off, and decided to spend it diving on ReefQuest - the "cattle car" of Deep Sea Diver's Den (DSDD) boats. It's a huge brand-new catamaran that seats about 120, but they cut off the reservations list at 80. DSDD markets this boat to the backpacker crowd, and there's much less service on it compared to SeaQuest. There was plenty of room for us when Jon called at 6:30 to see about diving stand-by, so we packed up our gear and headed to The Pier at 7:15.
Jon Relaxing on Reef Quest
Dive #1: Norman Reef - Shark Mountain
Depth: 24.6 meters
Bottom Time: 41 minutes
Visibility: 5-10 meters
Temperature:
27°C (brrr!)
Jon and I dove with Lindsay, who is one of the boat's videographers. But instead of videoing, he was snapping photos for a "portfolio" to show to customers so he can rent more cameras on the boat trips. The portfolio is supposed to be compiled of "pictures sent to him by previous customers" that they took with the rental cameras. So the irony is that, not only are the pictures NOT sent by previous customers, but he was taking the pictures with a fancy camera - not the rental ones!
Ahhh... the scams of the tourism industry.
The dive was great. Jon and I dove down to 25 meters so we could get depth on the first dive, and there I experienced my first real thermo-clime here in Australia. 27°C is hardly frigid, but it's a far cry from the normal 30°C that the reef usually sits at. It's probably a good thing that the water temperature is getting colder, because local meteorologists have been concerned about the warm-water "bleaching effect" on the reef. When the water temp gets too warm for too long, the colors of the reef bleach out and the coral begins to die. The reef is trying to kick back from its last bleach of three years ago. This explains why we've been disappointed by the colors here compared to the Red Sea.
But anyway - I was talking about the dive. Jon, Lindsay and I were the first in the water, which is nice because then we don't have any beginning divers floundering around and making the visibility worse than it already is. (Listen to me. I'm such a scuba snob now.). We ran across two sharks right away. Then we continued further down the reef and say a blue-spotted lagoon ray. We also saw a bunch more shark. All in all, we had six shark sightings, but we think that we only saw 4-5 sharks total. And then there was the huge potato cod we saw too.
After 45 minutes, Jon and I headed back to the boat to squeeze in a surface interval before our second dive.
Dive #2: Norman Reef - Shark Mountain
Depth: 14.6 meters
Bottom Time: 47 minutes
Visibility:
5-10 meters
Temperature: 29°C
Same dive site. Different side. We dove the shallower side of the reef and came across a hawksbill turtle eating the algae from the coral. When we lead dives or snorkelers, we don't usually get to hang around marine life like this for long periods of time because the customers want to move on and see what else they can find. It's always a shame too, because I LOVE the turtles. So Jon and I just hovered and watched the turtle for a good 10 minutes or so. It wasn't doing anything exciting except for biting off the coral and looking for lunch, but we were enthralled.
We moved along and found some huge barramundi swimming under some ledges.
A Barramundi Cod
We found a nice sandy patch of the reef and settled down in the sand to practice our bubble rings. To do this, I lean back and look at the surface, take my regulator out, build up air pressure in my mouth, and let a small burst of bubbles go every once in a while. This forms a ring which - if you're good - can stay ringed until it reaches the surface. Mine tend to break up after a few seconds. Jon's are much better, and he was trying to show me how to do it, but the "skills" translation gets lost in underwater sign-language.
I think my mouth must be lopsided or something!
Dive #3: Norman Reef - Turtle Bay
Depth: 12.1 meters
Bottom Time: 43 minutes
Visibility:
15 meters
Visibility was much better at Turtle Bay, but there wasn't anything terribly exciting to see. We were the first ones in the water again, and saw lots of clownfish and unicorn fish. 40 minutes into the dive, we found the swim-through on the reef, which I've never been able to locate before. After the swim-through, Jon looked at me and gave me the "what's your air at?" symbol. I told him 120 bar - which is a little over half a tank. I could see his eyes widen. He was at 50 bar, which is a quarter of a tank and the minimum amount allowed. In other words, we had to ascend. We were both gesturing underwater surprise as if to say, "What happened? How can you have so little air and I have so much?"
Obviously, someone neglected one of the Ten Commandments of Diving: Thou Shalt Check Your Air Gauge Before Submerging. (or else thou shalt screw your buddy out of a long dive)
Amen!
So Jon had submerged with less than a full tank. And what could have been an hour-long dive ended just after 43 minutes and me with HEAPS of air left in my tank! Grumble, grumble.
Back to Cairns
On the trip back to port, Jon read his book and I napped at one of the tables. As we got closer to Cairns, we passed SeaQuest. So Jon and I went to the starboard side of the boat to wave at the crew. Horst gave us the L-on-the-forehead sign and called us traitors. Hack - the ReefQuest skipper - honked at SeaQuest and Burkie honked back. It was fun to be on the "winning" boat for once. Although I have to admit that SeaQuest looked much less crowded than the cattle car ReefQuest. But the reason we decided to go on ReefQuest instead of SeaQuest is because we could get in three dives instead of two.
Leaving SeaQuest in Our Wake - literally.
We went home and made vegetable quesadillas (did I spell that right?) with home-made guacamole. It was very yummy and I was in a great mood because my friend Monica was coming in town tonight/tomorrow morning.
I went to sleep around 9:00 or so, because I had to wake up at 12:30 to go the airport.
Monica!
Monica is one of my best friends from college, and just graduated from INSEAD - an MBA program in France. (http://www.insead.fr/) She graduated in December, and has come to Australia to visit her new beau who lives in Sydney. Her flight has her passing through Cairns for 12 hours or so. Tomorrow afternoon she'll fly down to Sydney and she and Martin will travel together for a few weeks, and then they'll come back to Cairns to visit with us for a few days.
For now, she's only here for a few hours but I'm SO EXCITED to see her!!!!! This is our first taste of home in a long time.
I arrived at the airport at 1:00AM and waited for her to get through customs. Monica (aka "Myrtle the Turtle") made it through the customs door at 1:30 and looked very happy for someone who had been on a plane for 24 hours.
I put her stuff in the truck and we drove back to the house, where we stayed up until 2:30AM talking and catching up. It was so great to see her!