The Taka was my splurge for all of Australia, in fact, it was my biggest splurge on the trip so far. How much did it cost exactly? Well, I’ll tell you that I was the only backpacker on the boat. In fact, there were a higher percentage of Americans in this crowd than any other place I’ve been so far. When I asked people how long they were staying in Australia they would usually respond with “Two Whole Weeks!!!”
This crowd was a working crowd that could afford a 5 day long distance dive boat. I thought that the group would be experienced, but some of these people have been on hundreds of dives. Many of them had underwater camera housings that easily reached into the $4,000 dollar range and a few of them even had HD underwater video cameras. I quickly learned that Scuba is a lot like golf; you can get a lot of goodies and gadgets. It’s also a lot like golf in the sense that you don’t have to be in any sort of physical form to be very experienced. You don’t actually do any cardio work whilst floating under water.
Coming from the backpacker lifestyle, the culture shock disgusted me. What in the hell did these fat old people need with all that luggage for 5 days. I took a small backpack (the kind a kid would take to school). I wasn’t used to excess. I had effectively shed my gluttonous need for stuff over the past 2.5 months and to see everyone else around me still locked in just turned my stomach. I do have to admit that eating proper meals 3 times a day was a real treat and having ingredients like shards of parmesan cheese and cashew nuts in my salad was a true guilty pleasure. I found myself shoveling spoonfuls of the cheese and nut combo like it was its own food group. It’s funny how much you realize you missed something once you have it again.
In my ultra long career of 3 weeks diving I’ve learned that I am faster in “gearing up” (getting all my stuff on) than just about anyone. I find myself just waiting for people. For whatever reason, I just put the stuff on in one try and it tends to work out. The real mystery is what takes everyone else so damn long to get ready. Don’t get me wrong, in Snowboarding, I am always the last one ready for some reason, but in Scuba, I’m some sort of record setter. And I don’t even feel like I’m in a rush. But the divers of the Taka were extra slow. I actually timed them today and they took 20 minutes to get ready. And these guys are swimming around in 85 degree water with full wetsuits and gloves on. God forbid you might actually feel the normal water without some sort of high tech gadget being used.
The Taka is very lush compared to what I am used to. They provide two shower towels and a big beach towel for use on the deck. This is 3 more real towels than I am used to having. But of course the passengers never cease to amaze me when I smell shampoo after every dive. Some of these people are taking full on showers with soap and shampoo between every dive (we have 4 dives per day). This water is not particularly salty. I haven’t had a shower yet and there is absolutely no salt residue on my skin.
The water clarity out here is absolutely astounding. It was so clear at points that it just looked like we were on land and fish were flying around in broad daylight. They have a professional videographer on the boat who is making a DVD of the trip (very pricy) that I will be sending home to my parents (if it is good enough). If you want to see the clarity in HD, contact my mom J
On the way out to our dive site, there were dolphins riding the wake of the boat. It was a great site to see how little effort it took these creatures to keep up with the speed of the boat. Once at the site, we swam with a guide for the first dive because my buddy (in his fifty dives) had never been in the water without a guide. He was so incredibly uncomfortable and awkward in the water that it brought pain to my eyes. You’re telling me that this guy is 5 times as experienced and me and he couldn’t maintain neutral buoyancy?
The second dive was the infamous cod feed where we all went down to about 8 meters on the sand and the dive director of the trip fed a 400 pound giant cod (grouper) in front of each of our faces. I was first on the list and the giant was most hungry so when it grabbed the first piece of food, it rocked me back like an underwater land mine had gone off. It also made a distinctive sound that let you know there was some serious water being moved. It was an amazing experience, but there were so many people around (if you can call them people and not whales) that I felt like I was on a true tourist trap.
Later on that dive I was lucky enough to spot a lion fish. Lion fish are the beautiful ones that are not aggressive but if you touch them, you will probably get poked by one of their barbs and get the sensation of having your hand in boiling water for 18 hours. It’s not fatal but it’s more than enough pain and duration to make someone wish they were dead. Of course I couldn’t resist to just swim up to the fish and get less than a meter away.
I had a different dive partner for the cod feed than the first dive who was a bad ass from New York. He was muscle bound and dressed in the newest technology. His setup had to have been in the thousands. But he was a great dive partner seeing that he found the first moray eel that I have ever seen. Later that night, we had a dive where I would find a free swimming moray eel. It was a full grown 4-5 foot eel that was out of this world.
We did a third dive that was a lot lower visibility because there was a storm rolling in. The highlight was a red clam that appeared to be electric. It changed the colors in its mouth to entice fish to swim into it. To us, it looked like a mini runway for an airplane.
Before the night dive, the dive director gave us a great briefing. He told us about all the things we would see including the small sharks and the occasional tiger shark. He said that the tiger sharks (second most deadly shark in the world) could get up to 15 feet long and if someone spotted one that you must form the steel ring. The steel ring is a formation where divers face each other and lock arms in a tight circle. Once the arms are locked, you must tuck your head forward and pull your legs up (Aluminum dive tanks facing out to sea). The dive guide is to remain inside of the steel circle to navigate the group back to the boat. He said that the steel circle works almost every time because it confuses the shark. Then the director got into what to do if someone gets bit within the steel circle and ever so slowly made the story less and less believable. Eventually people realized that he was joking about the whole thing including the steel circle maneuver, but he sold it so well that we were all completely convinced.
The night dive was my second night dive and one of my favorite dives to date. There were a ton of very active fish and even a good amount of sharks. The sharks were only about 3-4 feet long and were not aggressive at all. The dive director explained a sport that you can do under water too. It’s basically playing god with your flashlight. You point your light at a small fish and a tuna sized fish promptly chases it down and eats it. You can do this all night. It’s really addictive. Its nature Plus.
The highest achievement in the night dive was definitely finding a 4-5 foot moray eel swimming in open water. During the day time, these animals are hiding in the cracks of the coral, but at night, you can see them in all of their magnificence.
Tonight we are making our way to osprey reef for the shark feed dive tomorrow.