Got up stupidly early as I hadn’t been able to sleep, probably from over enthusiasm about the previous day and not being able to ‘switch off’! Went up on deck, made tea and sat and enjoyed the view of Blue Pearl Bay, which had been masked by the shadows of darkness the night before. I chatted to Captain Tony and made him tea (I figured it was best to keep on the Captain’s side!). When everyone was on deck, we were given the day’s briefing and had to get a snorkel and mask.
Before long, the tender was transferring us to the beach (made entirely from pieces of coral) and we got into the crystal clear water in our stinger suits and snorkels to see some of the amazing marine life under the surface. Jana and I saw many different and brightly coloured fish, some by themselves and others in massive shoals which swarmed around us – nothing harmful, just hundreds of fish in a big group going out their day to day business! I kept a close look out for the GT – I really didn’t want to get up close and personal to that! I did see some parrot fish and a ray – plus many more fish that I am not qualified or knowledgeable enough to name! The coral itself was all different in shape, size and colour and we saw the odd tiny fish pop out of the little holes in the coral. Annoyingly, my mask had a leak so I kept having to take it off and drain it.
An optional extra had been to go diving at this site, so Jana and I had elected to do so, along with one other guest, Antonio. Damo brought over the tender to where we were snorkelling and picked us up to take us to the dive boat, so I told him about the leak and he gave me a different mask. Once on the dive boat, we got kitted up and briefed by Alison – the dive master leading our dive, then we hopped into the water. I was incredibly nervous as this was my first ‘real’ dive as a certified diver and sadly it wasn’t as successful as I would have liked it to be, but it can only get easier from here!
The dive site was adjacent to where we had been snorkelling and this particular site was called ‘The Maze’. As soon as we started descending, I had the usual trouble equalising, but this was easily solved, however a new problem ensued – my mask seemed to be letting water in more than I had been used to before. I cleared the water as I had been taught, but it seemed impossible to get it out, meaning I only had vision for about 20-30 seconds at a time before having to clear it again. Not good for two reasons – 1) I couldn’t see where I was going and 2) it was panicking me. The latter was then not helped as when I was able to see, I was further panicked by realising that when they said ‘The Maze’, they really did mean a maze and I was being surrounded by really tall walls of coral (at which point the brain kicks in with the message that has been drummed into it by everyone “Don’t touch or knock the coral”). Alison began leading us along the narrow ‘corridors’ between these walls of coral, but this was problematic as although I was following her closely, I kept having to stop and clear my mask, which would usually take 2 or 3 attempts to clear fully, then I would open my eyes and find myself having been carried away slightly and instead of seeing Alison, I was confronted by a big expanse of coral (“Don’t touch or knock the coral, don’t touch or knock the coral”). I would then catch her up but then would need to stop again and clear the mask, so being able to see where I was going was becoming more and more a problem and freaking me out more and more, as I was having such difficulty making my way along the narrow corridors and terrified that whilst having to be blind (shutting my eyes to keep clearing my mask) I couldn’t keep myself clear of the coral. After a while, my eyes were burning from so much salt getting into them and I decided that enough was enough and so signalled to Alison that I was surfacing.
On the surface, I was annoyed with myself that this dive was going so badly, then Alison popped up to check on me. I explained about the problems I was having and she checked my mask – it had a crack along the top, which was why it was filling up so fast. She was really sweet and calmed me down, offering to swap masks, so that I would actually be able to see where I was going, which should in turn make me less freaky about the coral corridors. I decided to give it another go, and sure enough, with Alison’s mask on, I was able to see and instantly felt a bit more at ease. It was still quite scary making my way between the walls of corridor, but being able to see where I was going helped a lot! I even managed to see some fish along the way, including a clown fish! The coral was a lot brighter and varied at this depth, compared to seeing it from the surface whilst snorkelling. Soon enough it was time to resurface and go back to the dive boat. Alison confirmed that the mask I had been using was absolutely shot to pieces and should be thrown away – made me feel a bit better, as I had wondered if it was just me being useless, but she agreed that it was impossible to clear! Jana was a bit disappointed with the dive as she could have stayed down longer, but I was quite relieved to be out of the water – excessive panicking expends much energy, so I was totally exhausted! Also, I had run low on air in my tank – in Hervey Bay they had commented on how little air I used, which showed me that this dive had been out of the ordinary for me, as I had used so much – due to panicking but probably helped by the amount of air I had needed to use to keep clearing the mask. So, all in all, not the best experience, but at least I tried and got there in the end!
Damo picked us up in the tender and returned us to the boat, before starting to ferry the others back from snorkelling. Back onboard, we got changed and chilled out on deck, chatting to people as they came back and playing ‘salons’ – Jana did people’s hair into French plaits! I made myself several cups of tea, to get over my trauma and made some for Captain Tony and Chris too – pomme style! Lunch was served when everyone was back – cold meats and salads, very good indeed.
Captain Tony then headed us towards our next stop – Black Island – a little island next to the most exclusive resort island of all the Whitsundays (Hayman Island). He told me all about this resort – it’s over $3000 per night, each room is allocated a dedicated ‘butler’ and there are underground tunnels/corridors for the staff to walk around – in order to ‘hide’ the staff and thus give the impression to guests on the surface that they are the only people on the island. All a bit OTT for me I think. Anyway, we weren’t going there, we were just looking at it! At Black Island, we were given the opportunity to go snorkelling again. After the morning’s antics, I wasn’t really in the mood, so asked if instead I could just go sit in the tender (it has to stay on the water nearby to where the snorkelers are in case someone gets into distress). It was a good opportunity to catch some sun and look in the water, as I was given a seascope – like a big, long, wide plastic tube with a piece of clear Perspex at one end. All I had to do was dunk the end in the water and it was like looking through a mask, only I could do this whilst sat in the boat! Ash and Chris were out on the boat too, although Chris was in the water, scraping the barnacles off the bottom of the tender. It was really nice just chilling out and chatting, although it was blisteringly hot! Eventually it was time to start ferrying the snorkelers back to the boat.
Once back on board, we spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the views as we made our way along to our next point of call, reopening the ‘salon’, as Jana gave people shoulder massages! I made more tea for Captain Tony and sat with him at the helm, hearing more about the Whitsundays, listening to some appallingly bad jokes and chatting about life, the universe, everything. I think I liked it there because there were less people, and although everyone on board was nice, at times, it was nice to be away from them all.
We arrived at the Nara Inlet of Hook Island and whist everyone else made a mad-dash for a shower, I watched the sky turn a strange grey/pink colour – it made me appreciate that we really had been lucky to see such an amazing sunset the day before. A cockatoo flew over to our boat from the island and sat on the ropes squawking until Chris fed it some bread and it flew off again. I then became aware of lots of little white things in the air and realised that they were cockatoos in the distance, flying about in the trees on the island.
After a dinner of roast beef, I had my 2 minute shower and then returned on deck where Damo showed us a big chart of the Whitsundays and told us a bit more about the Whitsundays themselves, the places we’d been to and what life aboard the boat would have been like many moons ago. I realised then how much time and how many questions I must have been asking him, Captain Tony and the rest of the crew as I seemed to already know most of this information! We spent the rest of the evening chatting, drinking and generally chilling. Again, I flitted between talking to the other guests on the mid-deck and going back to the helm and chatting to the crew. The sky was not as clear, so there were less stars to see, but still plenty of fish sploshing around in the water beneath us. Even after most people had gone to bed, I remained on deck, looking out across the sea and marvelling at the little twinkling green lights under the water caused by phosphorescent algae and made the most of my last night on board, staying up until 2am.
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