The Unbelievable.

Steffen and I. my German dive buddy, exhuasted post second dive.
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If there is one thing that you MUST do in your life it is visit the Great Barrier Reef.  And if possible go SCUBA diving there.

I have recently returned from a 3 day/3 night sailing adventure to the Whitsunday Islands and the Great Barrier Reef.  To put it simply, I loved every minute of it.  The boat was amazing.  It was an 82' Maxi yacht that raced in the Sydney to Hobart race and won.  This was a serious boat, and considering I know precisely zilch about sailing, I was quite impressed.  The group of 26 passengers on the boat was amazing and I really couldn't have asked for more (except room in my bed).  This berth was approximately 2 feet wide by 5 feet long by 1.5 feet high.  And while I have lost some weight since I've been away, I don't think I would have fit those dimensions since the Kelly Gruber broke his pinky in the world series. (I will try to post a picture of my berth later).

Straight back into the water after the first dive.
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Our trip started with a sail to Whitehaven Beach, a gorgeous whitesand beach (I could go into the chemistry behind the sand and silicates but I think Chris would be the only one to understand it - so I'll leave this interesting tidbit out).  Beautiful beach with spectacular water.  After that was our first dive (a free one) which was a beach dive with nothing too spectacular.  Magnificent Brain Coral, Maori Wrasse (Bumphead), Unicorn fish.  This wasn't the most spectacular dive I had ever done, visibility wasn't great and not much fish life, but amazing coral.

Bow of Spank Me
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The next day delivered us to the Bait Reef of the Great Barrier Reef.  I knew it was going to be an amazing day when the skipper looked over the side of the boat in 30m deep water and said, "I can't believe it, I can see the bottom".  This guaranteed at least +30m of visibility underwater.  This is fantastic, I'm literally itching to get in the water, snorkel or dive I don't care.  The divemaster informs us that the certified divers are going to do a cave dive first.  Excuse me? A cave diver? Humbaby, GET ME IN THERE!  We drop down to about 18m and head through our first tunnel, small but not uncomfortable.  Next we drop down another 9m to 27m and hit the real small tunnel, we're talking bite down on your regulator so it doesn't get ripped from your mouth and smash your airtank into the walls, pull yourself along the tunnel with your hands small.  This was sheer bliss - an undeniable high point of my trip, if not my life.  Here I was SCUBA diving on the Great Barrier Reef.  We saw, white tipped reef sharks, bat fish, massive maori wrasse, huge giant trevally.  After 50 minutes (at 27m - quite good) of being a kid in a candy store my air was at the point where I needed to return to the surface.  After dumping our gear I immediately grabbed a snorkel and headed back into the water.  I spent so much time in the water that people were calling me a fish by the end of the day.  I was in heaven - underwater.  The second dive of the day brought us done another wall and again through it - this time the tunnel was bigger.  I will call this one the "Bat Cave" because of the number of bat fish living there.  Spectacular.  I can't wait to get back there.

Wally the Maori Wrasse
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I loved my sailing trip so much that I talked my way into a job that allows me to sail these places on a regular basis.  I got a job as a deckhand and host for the Waltzing Matilda.  This means that I cook for the 14 guests and learn how to sail, snorkeling and diving in my free time.  I think I can handle this job.  I leave tomorrow at 7am for my first tour.  I go out for 3 trips (each trip is 3 days and 2 nights) in a row and then have 4 days off.  I'm a little excited.

Whitehaven Beach
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Now for a great story.  After our trip the passengers of our boat head out together for a celebration.  We head to an Irish bar with a live band.  As we enter the bar it's rumoured that there is a celebrity there that is filming a movie here in Airlie Beach.  We will call him Matthew.  So I get to the stage and start requesting music that I would like to hear.  And Matthew hears these great songs (Superstition - Stevie Wonder; Betterman - Pearl Jam) and we start requesting together.  And this band was eager to please this celebrity, and they were quite good.  So we were 'rocking out' to the music and he starts to hit me in a buddy buddy sort of way.  And of course I, not being particularly starstruck or shy come up with the joke "Don't make me break your nose and make you look like Owen Wilson" at which point Matthew McConaughey fell over laughing and bought me a drink.  I think that is my first celebrity sighting.