Diving in Queensland

One of the principal reasons I got dive certified in Fiji was because of its reputation for beautiful dive spots.  The other reason is so I'd be comfortable diving by the time I reached the Great Barrier Reef.  I dove on three separate occasions while in Queensland totaling ten dives: two out of Airlie Beach at Knuckle Reef (part of GBR), two out of Magnetic Island at the S.S. Yongala shipwreck, and six out of Cairns on a live-aboard trip to Norman Reef (also part of GBR).

The Airlie Beach dives are hardly worth mentioning here.  I required six total dives before diving the S.S. Yongala site, so I threw in two more before leaving Airlie.  I never thought of these dives as anything but enabling dives, and it was a good thing.  The sites we went to were crowded and had little life compared to places I'd seen in Fiji.  However, since my last dive had been part of a course more than 6 weeks prior, I was thankful for this warmup before I dove the two dives I was really looking forward to.  The only other notable about my diving in Airlie was the lunch buffet we had on the boat.  My typical lunches usually consist of sandwiches, fruit, muesli bars, or leftovers from the previous night's dinner.  When I saw a buffet of green mussels, shrimp, and scallops, I practically ignored the cold cuts, salads, and desserts on the other end.  I stuffed myself silly with...well, with the things I was seeing on the ocean floor...oops.

When I arrived in Melbourne, I began investigating different dive sites throughout Queensland, where I knew I'd be spending most of my time.  Several people had told me that the best diving would not be out of Cairns, even though it would be the cheapest and most accessible port to the GBR.  The S.S. Yongala fits into this category.  This ship sunk several kilometers off the coast near the town of Ayr.  One may also dive the site out of Townsville or Magnetic Island, both more popular places to visit and stay.  Surrounding the ship is nothing but a sea of sand.  This means the ship acts as a "bommie", or underground hill, upon which life spawns.  Coral has encrusted this ship for almost 100 years, and the coral-following life slowly joined thereafter.  While the ship and its interior is fascinating, the life amongst the wreck is unmissable, even to an untrained eye such as mine: shrimp, nudibranches, sea cucumbers, lionfish, sea snakes, moray eels, maori wrasse, trevaly, turtles, and even rays whose wing span exceed a human's height.  This was my first wreck dive, and the only thing I'd change was my own experience with shooting photos underwater.  Until now, I hadn't tried the underwater housing for my camera, partly out of nervousness, largely because my other dives hadn't allowed or warranted it.  The photos associated with this entry are very basic and the colors need adjustment, but I hope they provide a feeling of what I experienced.

Coming off these two great dives, I headed to Cairns, where I was scheduled to do a live-aboard dive trip.  The guides on the Yongala boat tried to get me to stay an extra day to go diving with them at another site, for a nominal fee of course, because they gagged upon hearing where I was diving next.  I had seen this response before but did not let it get me down.  I had only dived the GBR twice and I was going to spend the night on a boat!  Still sounds great to me, and it absolutely was.  The crew was extremely likable.  I made some good friends very quickly.  My dive buddy was great.  And the amenities exceeded all expectations I had.

The company was called the Deep Sea Divers Den, and I mention them here in the hopes that this brings them some other business, because I truly had a great time.  Throughout my travels to this point, I had met only a handful of Americans.  In one afternoon, I met five more, and all from California.  Four of them lived no more than 30 minutes from me, so I was happy to see some people from home and even happier to see that they were representing our country well.

Our trip began with a 2-hour ride out to the reef on a small boat called ReefQuest.  Looking around on this boat ride, I could tell I was not the only one wondering about sleeping accommodations.  We hardly had enough room to move around and sit, let alone sleep.  However, that was a good 12 hours from now and we had some diving to do in between.  All six dives I had done to this point were with a guide: 4 as part of Open Water certification and 2 as part of a dive that exceeded my certified depth limits (18m).  Even though I was nervous to do so, I chose not to do the next dives without a guide.  I asked myself what the point was of having a certification if I always chose a guide.  The answer? No point, you pansy.  I buddied up with a woman who was studying for her Advanced certification and, again, was thankful for the four previous dives I had just done.  We went through all the necessary checks and hand signals, and, apart from her dive computer failing, had a great couple of dives on Norman Reef.

By the afternoon, those staying the night transferred to OceanQuest, a much larger and ritzier vessel.  Ash, our dive coordinator boasted that the boat had the largest dive deck of any operating out of Cairns.  Turns out he wasn't exaggerating.  The ship used to be a small chartered cruise boat.  In addition to a roomie dive deck, this also meant plush dining room, lounge area, and bedrooms.

After transferring, I suited up again to dive a new site with a new buddy, a guy named Mark who lives in Pacifica, CA.  He and I got along very well above and below the water and remained buddies for the duration of the trip.  We also participated in the night dive after dinner, the first for each of us.  Next to the Yongala, this particular experience stands out as the coolest in my short diving life.  Diving was already paralleled to spacewalking, but without light, even more so.  Our torches looked like city searchlights, occasionally catching the green eyes of prey and predator fish and the red eyes of crustaceans.  Giant Trevaly swam over us, below us, and, if necessary, through us to reach their prey we inadvertently illuminated with our torches.  This dive ended the day's activities but not the day's excitement.  The bed in my cabin was as memorable as the dives themselves.  Imagine sleeping on rickety steel bed frames on a thin mattress with over-starched sheets for two months.  Now imagine you've been given a bed with a box spring, sheets whose thread count exceed 100, and a down duvet.  How excited are you?  Not nearly excited enough.  I know I went to sleep with a large, uncontrived smile on my face.

The next morning Mark and I did a couple more dives, including one at 6am, which was probably the best time of the day to spot sea activity.  However, my final dive of the day, one at 10am, was my favorite daytime one of all.  Not only was I extremely comfortable with my own gear, safety checks, and buddy by this point, but I saw three mega-fauna on this dive.  A sea turtle was only a few meters from our boat as soon as we entered the water, but I failed to get a great shot of it.  Shortly after the turtle, we spotted a 100+ year old giant clam.  The pinnacle of the dive was watching a 2m white-tip reef shark get cleaned while resting on the sand from a distance of 3m or so.  So cool to get that close to this beautiful predator.

I now have 14 dives in my log book and a strong diving fever to match.  I can hardly wait to reach Bali and Thailand, where I know other beauties, and perhaps an Advanced certification, await.