Great Barrier Reef

GREAT BARRIER REEF, AUSTRALIA – This morning we woke up to sunrise over the water, and I just knew it was going to be a good day. Why? Today we are going to the Great Barrier Reef! After a quick brekkie at the hotel, we boarded a 45 minute ferry over to Hamilton Island, the most populated (and popular) of the Whitsundays, and also home to the Great Barrier Reef Airport – many of the rich and famous people from around the world will fly into here in order to get to the reef. From the airport, we docked to the pier and switched boats to the much larger 320-passanger capacity ship that would be taking us to the reef itself. Once everyone was on board (our delegation of 50 people was part of 220 on the ship today), we set off from Hamilton on our two hour journey across the Coral Sea!

July 21, 2012 - Good morning from Daydream Island!

On our ride towards the reef, it wasn’t too rough, and only a couple of our students got sea sick. The staff on the ship was prepared for this and got them some ice cubes to chew on (which really helps with sea sickness quite a bit). Eventually we arrived at Hardy Reef, one of thousands of individual reef systems that collectively form the Great Barrier Reef, a UNESCO world heritage site and one of the seven natural wonders of the world.

At the Great Barrier Reef!

The colors of the water were truly spectacular – every type of blue and turquoise you can imagine – and they extended as far as the eye can see in every direction (the reef is some 2,000 miles long – about the width of the United States from Los Angeles to Washington D.C. – and its alive). The ship docked to a stationary pontoon float, and we first met with our private marine biologist Crystal over at the underwater observatory, where she talked about many of the different species of fish out in front of us, as well as the wall of the reef itself, which we could make out in the distance through the water. After our lecture we went back over to our ship and had a light lunch, because following lunch it was time to jump in the water!

Scuba Diving at the Great Barrier Reef!

The students put on their colorful stinger suits (even though it isn’t the right season, you never know if a jellyfish will still be around off-season, so the prudent thing to do is wear the suits for protection anyway), flippers, masks, and mouthpieces, and they were ready to jump in! As they were doing so, the other leaders and I decided to do an introductory scuba dive! I have never been scuba diving before, and it was certainly not cheap, but what the heck, of all the places to do it for the first time, you can’t possibly top this! A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to scuba dive the great barrier reef? That’s what People to People and I are all about!

We got our wet suits, weight belts, and oxygen tanks on, and then got into the cold water (about 65F) to put on our flippers and masks too. We started to practice breathing, and it was very strange, just like snorkeling for the first time. With the water being a bit chilly, I was breathing faster normally, which only worsened the cause. After about 15 minutes of practice I got comfortable with it and swam over to an underwater rope about 2 meters under. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get my ears to pop, which is basically the only thing (along with your oxygen) that really has to work in order to dive. I kept getting different pressure on both sides and having to come back to the surface to start over. About 20 mins of this back-and-forth between the surface and 2 meters later, the staff was about ready to give up on me, and it was seeming pretty hopeless to me as well. Eventually the head diver came out and we tried 6 different ways to pop the ears at 2 meters under – sure enough one of them worked! I basically had to turn my head 75 degrees to the left while holding my nose and blowing out for a good three seconds in order to do it, but once that was settled, we were off for real!

We swam over to the reef and it was stunning. There were thousands of fish in every direction, corals as soft as hair (that we could actually touch), and at our maximum depth of around 15 meters, we saw a sand shark (tasseled wobbegong) sleeping on the reef floor! Too cool! I went a little trigger-happy with my new underwater camera, which worked to perfection, and took a ton of photos and videos from underwater – they turned out great (see a video compilation I put together below)! Overall it was a memory for a lifetime, and I can’t wait to do it again sometime! It’s funny – the 45 mins of preparing for the dive felt like four hours, and the 30 mins of actual diving felt like about four minutes, haha.

Leaving the Reef

On our return journey to Hamilton Island we got some great photos leaving the reef, and after a few minutes a couple students came down to report that they had seen whales from the bow! I led the charge to the top deck to be on lookout, and within about three minutes of getting there the waters got so rough that the ship staff actually forbid us from leaving our seats! I really didn’t mind it being up there, but us leaders felt terrible for our DM Anthony! We had a few students with us, so we were able to keep an eye on them, but 30 mins later when the waters finally calmed down we were allowed to go down and upon surveying the damage, we had 16 students on the ground in the back of the ship seasick. Luckily, with calmer waters and some ice from the ship crew, within a little while everyone was fine, and shortly thereafter we were arriving back into Hamilton for our much calmer journey back to Daydream Island for the night.

Back to the Whitsunday Islands

The Great Barrier Reef: CHECK!