December 29 - Australia: Cairns

Downtown Cairns at 4:30am:  Jon's run #37

Still determined to get better acquainted with Cairns I headed through the downtown area on my run this morning.  The downtown area runs along the water and the main area goes out about 5 blocks inland.  So anyway, to me this is just another work day but it seems that since it is also very early Saturday morning, it's also the end of the night on Friday for many people leaving the downtown bars.  It's kind of funny seeing the two worlds collide--the sober world of the morning runner and the late-night world of the partying clubber.  I actually heard one girl yell to her friends as they were leaving her "Oh my God, that guys running.  What time is it?"  Pretty funny if you ask me.

I had the day off again, but Burkie had told me yesterday that I could come dive on Sea Quest today.  They have a full boat, but he 'reckoned' that they'd have a BCD and regulator for me.  So I went to the docks with Jon at 6:30 this morning.  The Dive Supervisor - Dave - has a girlfriend who used to instruct for Deep Sea Diver's Den and she and her friend Caz came on board to do the same thing I was doing.  The three of us decided to dive together.

I spent the two-hour trip out to the reef reading the instructions for my Suunto Stinger.  Amazingly, it took me 45 minutes just to get to the part that told me how to set the date and time!  But it's a great computer and does some incredible stuff.  I couldn't wait to break it in!

Dive #1: Norman Reef

Depth: 14.9 meters

Bottom Time: 75 minutes

Visibility: 20 meters

This was a spectacular dive!  Vanessa and Caz are veteran divers, so the three of us just cruised slowly and happily through the dive.  We were all very good on air, so that explains why we could stay down for an hour and fifteen minutes on one tank each.  I came up with 40 bars left (out of 200), but Caz beat me with 70 bars.  So I still have a ways to go in the area of air conservation.

Anyway, the dive was tremendous.  We saw a scorpion fish, a cuttle fish, a blue-spotted ray, Wally the Maori Wrasse, and a massive turtle.  And this doesn't include the schools and schools of fish we passed along the way.  What a great dive!

A Cuttle Fish

A Sea Turtle

Clownfish

Dive #2: Norman Reef

Depth: 15.5 meters

Bottom Time: 64 minutes

Visibility: 15 meters

Visibility was a little less than the first dive, but it was still a great dive.  We didn't see quite as much, but we did encounter some huge schools of fish.  I really need to start learning the names of these fish so I can note what they are!  There was no mistaking the whitetip reef shark, though.  It was lying in the sand having a little nap, and wasn't the least big concerned about us.

A Whitetip Reef Shark 

At the end of the dive, the three of us hung out beneath the boat and watched the little fish.  Since Jon was on snorkel guide-duty, he was just above us on the surface.  I couldn't resist grabbing his fin and pulling him down.  What can I say?  I'm easily entertained.

Jon's Snorkel Discovery

It turns out that Jon did have an exciting snorkel experience, though.  Despite having 13 snorkelers to look after, he came across two epaulette sharks mating in the shallows.  This is something that is VERY rare to see.  In fact, we had the founder of "Reef Teach" on the boat with us.  Reef Teach is a well-known local educational program about the fish and the coral on the reef (www.reefteach.com.au/).  Paddy, the Irish man who runs it, was amazed that Jon had witnessed this.  He said that in his 10 years in Australia he's never seen anything like it.  He also said that it's so rare that he doesn't even teach about it in Reef Teach because it's not something that anyone ever sees.  Isn't that cool?

An Epaulette Shark, one of the smallest sharks in the world