TGBR - New Zealand and Australia Post #5

The Great Barrier Reef: Finally had the chance to dive there as well as out on the Whitsunday Islands. Here's the setup... after countless bits of advice from family and Aussie friends I deceided to, against everyone's advice, drive from Sydney to Cairns, which is considered to be the gateway to the Breat Barrier Reef (GBR). I rented a "Wicked Camper" the bargain basement caravan rental in NZ and Oz... basically a graffitied Mitsubishi work van with a bed in th back... their schtick is to be ultra-edgy... their voice message at the Sydney office has something to do with not being able to get to to the phone because the transvestite that chained them to the bed last night has lost the keys... ha, ha... ha.

The drive is a little over 2600 Km predominantly along the coast on the Bruce highway. I had to turn back on my first attempt as severe table-land storms had torn through Brisbane and made the highways impassable... the golfball sized hail that pelted me in the camper van concinced me in the end if I'd had any doubts about the severity of the weather. After another "horrible" week down south at the family cottage (surfing, fishing, eating, sleeping) I made another attempt and drove up to Airlee Beach (gateway to the Whitsundays) in about a day and a half. In the end I should have stopped at some of the sleepy little towns along the coast and surfed a bit even if there didn't seem to be much swell. Airlee Beach was a bit crowded and full of trendy Euro-hipsters partying and drinking on "beach"... a concrete lagoon in town as everyone was afraid to go to the real beach due to the jelly-fish... I went to the beach and never saw a single one... saw lots of bandaids in the lagoon though... go figure. I ended up hanging out in Airlee for about two days until I was able to get out on a sail boat that promised some good diving out along the Islands. The boat slept about 30 people and was more about providing a floating bar for the 20 somehtings that populated it. The diving ended up being pretty good though as for the most part it was just the dive master and I... everyone else was either to hung over to dive or still drinking... when they tried to come out on the dive skiff with us the young dive master would just politely tell them to F-off and we'd head out... pretty cool on his part as it meant he would get fewer tips. To give you an idea of how rowdy the crowd was let's just say that one of my Cambridge-bred cabin mates woke us all up one night as he drunkenly (and nakedly) worked on foreign realtions with an austrian girl that he'd met that evening... I woke up to inquire as to the strange noises, noticed the goings on about 2 feet to my left, bid them good eveing and left to sleep on deck. This young fellow was mortified the next morning, apologized profusely and was riddled with comments from his mates for the rest of the day... pretty funny. I realized who the girl was the next day as she tunred away and hid her face as soon as she saw me in the chow line... also pretty funny.

After Airlee I drove throught the evening and night up to Cairns to make the ferry out to the GBR live aboard I'd booked a stay on for three days. I was a bit concerned about diving ooff of a boat that held so many people. My fears turned out to be unjustified. There were about 50 people on the boat but they rotated each group on a schedule that worked almost flawlessly. I ended up making quick friends with some of the folks in my group which proved useful as we weren't aloud to dive alone. All of the dives were fantastic, including the night dive, but I'll let the photos below tell that story...


On the way out to the reef.


Pale is the new tan ;-)

A few shots from the reef...


... and a few divers...

...Bas the dive master...

...yours truly...

...Viktor from Austria... cool dude and a great diver...

...and Carla from South Africa... cute as a button and a great diver too.