Australia - Part Two - Cairns

FIRST DAY OF DIVING

We were able to check in with Silverswift on our walkabout yesterday looking for swimming togs – so we only had to get up and be at the boat no later than 8:00 am.  We skipped breakfast, took our Bonine, made sure our seasickness patches were still firmly in place from last night and headed out.

We boarded the boat, filled out some paperwork and then started out towards the reef. It was INCREDIBLY windy and choppy – people were throwing up everywhere, and if you weren’t throwing up you were being thrown from side to side. (And this was a pretty BIG boat, too!) Damian and I absolutely loved it – the medication was working; the waves were powerful and amazing – and it brought back to many good memories of previous trips.

It took over an hour to get out to the first stop on Flynn’s reef. The first site was called Links and we jumped into the water with Dive Master Sho to a breathtaking scene. I can’t even describe how beautiful it was down there. So much diversity of coral and fish and colors and movement. I mean you EXPECT the great barrier reef to be amazing – and this lived up to it. The visibility was PERFECT and I am kicking myself for not renting a camera to capture the underwater splendor – but I just wanted to enjoy my dives, which I DID.  Plus they have a professional photographer who dives with you to capture photos of you diving and the fish we see on the reef - and her photos are amazing!

Second dive was even better than the first we went to Gordon's (also on Flynn’s reef).  

After the second dive we had an amazing buffet lunch which included the best pork curry I’ve ever had, fresh prawns (head on, of course – blech) – and lots of salad options, some white fish, it was just really good.

Third dive was to Tracey's Reef.  I, having worn a massive piece of skin off my foot from the flippers, opted to skip the third dive.   I stayed on board to read and ended up taking a nap while Damian went out.

He told me it was a ridiculous amount of swimming and much the same scenery, so it was probably good that I skipped it. Don’t know if he was just being kind – but regardless, I needed the nap.

The boat made its way back to cairns, putting out desserts for everyone who was brave enough to start eating again. It wasn’t as bad as the journey out, but it was still quite rocky. And our medication was still working beautifully.

We had just enough time for showers before we got texted by anna and mark who were already having cocktails at the cocktail bar before our hotel. So we met them down there and headed over to Ochre for dinner. Since we bought dinner last night (Dundee’s is kind fancy) I expected them to pick something more reasonable, but they chose something even fancier and treated us to an amazing dinner.

At 8:30 we were exhausted and off to bed – asleep and snoring easily by 9.