Big Australian Adventure: Friday

So Cameron, lisa, scott, dan, grant, and myself left on the grey hound at 1am Friday morning to head up to Cairns and meet up with Aleks and Caitlin who had gone up the previous day. So yes, we got on the bus ridiculously early and none of us could sit next to one another because we were one of the last stops to pick people up at. I ended up making some woman move her crap so I could sit down because she was taking up two seats. I couldn't sleep the whole ride because it was horribly uncomfortable and there were also two older, smelly, women who were talking rather loudly that sat right behind me. One of them also kept breathing oddly, and it sounded kind of like creepy laughing mixed with labored breathing. I'm not really sure what was up with her, it was weird. There were also a few times when the woman directly behind me would put her hand on the headrest of my chair and grope my head. Once again, very weird and distracting when trying to fall asleep. We got into Cairns around 7am and had to check in at our boat in the marina at 8am for our day trip to the reef to SCUBA! Luckily for us the bus depot was a 5-10 minute walk from the marina so we took some time to find a bathroom to change and wash up before starting our day. We also went to the stops at the entrance to the marina for a little breakfast. I happened to be the smart one in the group and brought food along to limit my purchases, so i had some apples, bananas, and granola for breakfast while waiting for everybody to get their food and coffee. After all of that we had about 10 minutes to get to our boat, which happened to be in nearly the very last slip down the marina. We got there on time and hopped onto this HUGE pontoon-like mega-big sailboat. oh wait, did i mention that our trip got upgraded because the original boat we were on was down for maintenance? because it did! SCHWING! The professional photographer grabbed our picture and then we headed down to the cabin with all of our luggage and had some complimentary morning tea and biscuits! After tea we filled out some mandatory paperwork and then the boat set off for the 2 or so hour sail out to the reef. We all spent a lot of time sitting out on deck and checking out the gorgeous scenery and enjoying the sweet sunshine. Eventually they called everyone out to the deck for a explanation of the safety procedures, fire risks, where the life jackets where, and all that jazz. It ended up being really entertaining, the crew was great. At the point when they were talking about sea sickness the guy said that the instructions for the barf bags were conveniently printed right on the inside and that when you were finished to just throw the bag overboard, but to be mindful of the wind because Australia is the land of boomerangs, and what goes away has a silly tendency to come back at you. hahaha. During this talk they also mentioned that you could rent an underwater camera ( a nice one) for $50 for the entire day and they'd put all your pictures, along with some professional ones, on a CD for you. So, of course, I jumped on that opportunity. Lucky for me, everything thing else, aka gear hire and lunch, were already paid for so i was more than willing to spend the money on the camera. Although, i did have to rent a wetsuit for $8, but the lady couldn't figure out how to work the register so she just gave us them for free!! We landed off of a cay called Michaelmas Cay. Cam, grant, myself, and some girl from France were the only people on the boat that were certified divers, so we basically had a dive master all to ourselves! For our first dive we took a boat out to the beach on the Cay and started as a shore dive, so it was an easy one. We saw all sorts of awesome things, including my favorite, a sea turtle!! Our guide let us hold this huge, lumpy sea cucumber and showed us nemo hiding in a sea anemone along with heaps of other things. We also got to touch a giant clam to get it to snap shut. awesome! They really are quite beautiful, with all sorts of blues and purples along their mantle because of the symbiotic zooxanthellae that they house. The dive was nice, but visibility could have been a lot better. We kept kicking up the sand from the ocean floor. Speaking of which, i made the stupid mistake of leaving my fins at uni, so i had to borrow the not as nice ones from the boat which didnt come with booties or a heel strap. they were the lame rubbery ones that we used to use at swim practice and they were WAY too narrow for my feet. This meant that all of that sand floating around kept finding its way into my fins and chafing my poor feet, which really sucked. Anyways, after the dive it was time for lunch. They served an AMAZING spread. There was fish, garlic parmesan potatoes, rice, chicken wings, a large assortment of fresh fruits ( I tried passion fruit for the first time), a few different pasta salads, regular salad, prawns with the head and everything still attached, bread, and cold cut meat and cheese. It was so delicious and probably the best meal I've had since I've been in Australia. We all sat out in the sunshine on deck and ate and it was absolutely perfect. A little while after lunch the two boys and I suited up for our second dive. This time the french girl didn't come along because she didn't have the money to pay for a second dive, so it was just the three of us, plus another boat employee so i'd have a diving buddy. We went out to a reef called Coral Gardens that was absolutely stunning. Visibility here was better because there wasn't really sandy sediment because it was all coral everywhere. I don't think I've seen so many different beautiful coral formations in my life, it was absolutely breathtaking. I just wish the colors you see when your down there transfer better in pictures. Oh well. Anyways, we saw some more cool fish and on this one we even saw.....SHARKS! Two, to be exact. White tipped reef sharks. They were awesome and I got pretty dang close to one, I'd say within 10 feet. SO cool!!!! Even though we didn't see any turtles on this dive it was definitely my favorite. This dive didn't last that long and we had to fight the current a bit, but afterwards we hopped back into the little boat to bring us back to the main boat for the sail back. I dropped off my digicam to get my pictures put into CD format and then the lot of us went up to chill some more on the deck and take in the rays. After it got a little chilly we made our way back into the cabin where they served us complimentary champagne while one of the crew members was kickin' it on his acoustic guitar playing some jack johnson and some other sweet tunes. Talk about a perfect day. After we got back to town we headed for our hostel, Gilligan's, and checked into our room. Because there were 8 of us together we fit perfectly into one room, which was awesome. I decided to take a shower because i was feeling filthy and most everybody else decided to start smashing the booze. It was roughly 6pm. Once i got out of the shower I realized the girls had gone to buy alcohol, the guys were already boozing, and there was a random piece of coral in the sink being run under hot water. Turns out dan had ripped a large coral off of the reef and brought it back, and was now killing it via thermal stress in the sink. I was pretty irritated about that, seeing as he took it from a protected wildlife preserve. What a d-hole. but yes, after all that lisa, caitlin, and I did a little shopping before meeting up with everyone for dinner at Cactus Jack's. After dinner it was back to the room, I laid down in bed right away and was ready to sleep because I was exhausted. It wasn't even 10pm yet, and all the guys really wanted to go out. Only 2 of them ended up going and everybody kind of just went to bed. We had to be up early saturday because our bus was picking us up at 7:25am to take us up to cape tribulation.