After my second overnight 10 hour bus ride, I arrived in Airlie Beach. It was 6am when the bus arrived and the boat wasn’t leaving until 1pm so I had some time to kill. I dropped by the local chemist to purchase some motion sickness pills and then parked myself on a park bench to try and grab some sleep. I must have looked like a total bum and if I had a empty cup next to me, I would have for sure had some change in it by the time I woke up.
Something I didn’t read on the brochure of this particular boat was that it was “lovely for couples.” Needless to say I ended up being the 11th wheel on the ship. Laughing out loud when I had realized, I think that the captain (Adam) and the deck hand/cook (Tina) where even secretly dating which would make me a 13th wheel. Each couple was from a different country and spoke a different language, but all of them spoke at least a little English. The couple that I enjoyed the most was a German couple (my age) living in Australia for about a year. They both spoke great English and the girl didn’t even have an accent because she had lived in Michigan for over a year. Stereotypically speaking, Germans usually are known for their strong accents and their lack of drive to adopt the native accent. This couple was top notch. But enough about the people, let’s get to the Great Barrier Reef.
I would describe the GBR as a giant organic strip club. You can look but you can’t touch. There were so many millions of beautiful things swimming around and graphic coral formations in almost every shape and size. There were huge clams the size of water melons with florescent green and purple lips, pulsing open and closed to the beat of an imaginary song. It looked like a cartoon. It was freaking unbelievable. Big parrot fish that were bright green and blue, snapping pieces of the coral off and chewing it into sand. Even a sea turtle showed up briefly to say hello. But this wouldn’t be Australia without some danger.
It was a mandatory clause to be wearing a wetsuit at ALL times when entering the water. We are now in deadly jellyfish territory. There are two major types. The uragangie jellyfish isn’t exactly fatal but it will send you to the hospital for a long time. It is completely translucent so most swimmers never see it coming. The last morning of my dive, I actually spotted one. Needless to say, I got right out of the water to avoid his friends. The second type of deadly Jellyfish is absolutely fatal known as the box jelly (Man of war). These things look like a Don Quixote helmet and hand out around the shores of mainland Australia. Get stung by one of them and you’ll probably be dead before someone can pull you up onto the boat.
There are also a number of species of sharks around the islands including, tiger sharks, black tip reef sharks, and bull sharks. Tiger sharks are the only deliberate man eaters of the bunch. They have an indiscriminating pallet. They are the garbage disposals of the sea. They can definitely be fatal, whereas most people live through bull shark attacks and black tip reef sharks can only take about a big mac worth of flesh out of you before you get back to the boat.
The shark attack scenario is quite rare in this part of the country but the jellyfish situation is very serious. This is why the captain of the boat gets into a motorized dingy and drives around all of the snorkelers when they are in the water. He watches over them like a mother hawk and if anything were to happen, he would be there to fix it before any of the other snorkelers even notice anything is wrong.
What about the weather? Well, we are in the windy season so the visibility is not going to be good no matter how you slice it, but the captain seemed to be able to find some coves that were mostly clam due to the islands blocking the winds. Still, when someone would dive down 15 feet, you couldn’t see them anymore. It was best not to worry about sharks in the murky water, even though the low visibility increases the chances of mistaken identity based attacks greatly.
The weather was very windy and even some scattered downpours, but when the sun was shining, I felt like I was in a Nautica commercial. Bronzed bodies casually lying across the deck of a sail boat? We made this stuff look good. And believe it or not, I’m actually tanned now. Everyone here gets the program. But SPF 30 sunscreen on every 1.5-2 hours and you will be bronzed. Wait a half hour too long and it’s to the cancer ward with you.
The highlight of the trip had to be when the captain went fishing off the back of the boat at dusk for sharks. He used a fish head and a mini glow stick. The combination both got the blood into the water and attracted small fish with the light. This process can sometimes take all night, but within a frighteningly short 7 minutes, the fishing pole bent in a completely flexed “N” shape. Like some scene out of Jaws, the real squealed as the unknown creature swam away with the bait. The sun was setting in all its beauty as our fearless captain had to put the brakes on because his real was running out of fishing line.
I was chanting “shark for dinner, shark for dinner” as the captain said “this has to be the biggest shark I’ve ever caught in this area.” I was crossing my fingers for a tiger shark, as I had never seen one in person. I wanted to see a monster. Never mind the snorkeling tomorrow, I wanted to see a man eater.
The best part about the set up was when the shark got close to the surface, you could see the glow stick approaching the surface as well. The glow stick was still about 20 feet ahead of the hook and every time the glow stick reached the surface, the shark pulled harder and harder down to the bottom of the sea. The battle went on for about 30 minutes or so and the passengers on the boat were electric. We couldn’t wait any longer until there it was.
A 6 foot albino hammerhead shark; it was beautiful. As pale a white as you can imagine with some pink hue near its eyes. This must not be eaten at all. As it was swimming along the surface, we all snapped as many pictures as we could in the low light. The cameras of course didn’t capture the essence of the situation though. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be shared.
Before we could get the hook out of its mouth, the shark dove under the boat, severing the line in the process. We were all high on adrenaline for the next hour or so after that. It was my first proper shark fishing occasion and it was absolutely stunning.
Next I am taking a bus up to Townsville where I will catch a ferry to Magnetic Island. There I will get my open water Scuba Certification after a 3 day dive course. After that I plan on flying to the center of the country to experience the true outback. Wish me luck!!
I gotta see some pics of this hammerhead.