The biggest Reef system in the world
The Great Barrier Reef off the northeast coast of Australia is the largest contiguous collection of coral reefs in the world. In the course of its evolution it has grown to a length of over 2,300 kilometres. The area of the Great Barrier Reef is approximately 347.800 km² and can be seen with a bare eye from space. It is one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites and belongs to the seven wonders of nature. A large part of the reef is protected by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, which helps to limit the impact of human use, such as fishing and tourism.
Other environmental threats to the reef include climate change, which causes massive coral bleaching, and cyclical population outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish, which feed on the coral. Since 1985, the reef has lost more than half of its coral cover.
First scuba dive after 3 years
For a long time I had considered if I really want to pay so much money and go diving in the Great Barrier Reef. My last scuba diving experience dates back almost 3 years. This was a good opportunity to use my diving licence again and I did not know if I would ever come back to the Great Barrier Reef. On top of that I got a 10% discount from my employer where I volunteered and in the end I paid about 170€ for the day trip to the Great Barrier Reef. Shortly before 6 am I had my breakfast and watched some european football on my laptop and a few minutes later the bus picked me up to bring me to the harbour of Cairns.
A sea of vomit
My boat, the Dreamtime Dive & Snorkel, already waited for me. I had booked a Scuba Diving and a snorkel dive. But before we arrived at the dive sites more than 2 hours passed by. And the swell of the ocean on the way was immense. Things were thrown around and people were having trouble maintaining themselves on their feet. I was sitting at the front of the bow, which is the part of the boat that gets hit the hardest by the swell. It was worse than a roller coaster ride and this one doesn't even last that long. My stomach held out and I didn't get sick. Unlike some of my fellow passengers. The staff struggled to keep up with handing out the vomit bags. At least half of the people got sea sick, the area inside the boat was almost completely empty because all the passengers went out in the back of the boat where the effects of the swell are not so strong. It is recommened to take sea sickness pills before you start (they sell them on board as well). Some people even felt so sick they missed their already paid dives.
Extremely disappointed by the first dive
We stopped at the first dive spot where I only snorkeled. And there I was already quite disappointed. The strong swell made the sea extremely choppy, you could hardly see anything. In addition, water always flooded the snorkel from above. In Honduras for the whole diving course I had paid almost as much as for this one diving trip here in Australia and there I had seen much more! I already regretted a little bit to have spent so much money.
Having the guide for myself
However, after a delicious lunch on the boat everything got better. The sun came out from behind the thick clouds. In the second spot I had booked my Scuba dive. There were about 60 people on my boat, at least half of them were Chinese and all of them could not swim. Luckily I was the only one on my boat who had a diving licence and so I could dive deeper than the beginners. Thereby I had my guide all to myself. Normally you would have to pay a lot more to have the guide for yourself. It took me a while to get used to all the equipment again, but my guide Paul was very patient and clarified. All the crew puts safety first, so that nobody gets lost and all the diving equipment was in great condition.
Swimming along turtles, sharks and stingrays
The visibility was much better during the scuba dive and because you could dive deeper you could see more anyway. I spotted many small fish, stingrays and also a few sharks playing with each other. In the end we floated next to a turtle for 15 minutes - just wonderful! My guide said I was very lucky to see that many animals up close. Maybe the animals sensed that I'm an animal lover and showed no fear of me.
Besides I had no problem with my ears this time. When I was doing my diving license in Honduras I always had a lot of pressure on my ears when I was diving down and I kept blowing into my nose to equalize the pressure. When I got out of the water I always ended up with a bloody nose. Not here, because this time I just descended more gently.
Great crew & tour
On the way back we had to go through the strong swell again, but we slowly got used to it. All in all the tour turned out to be really worth it. Also the atmosphere on the boat was really great because of the nice staff. They have a marine biologist who explained us a lot about the maritime life and a photographer who took a nice photo of me underwater (for which I had to pay additional 20$). They even included staff with Aboriginal descent who taught us something about their culture.
