Me in my full SCUBA gear, diving the Great Barrier Reef.

Park visit: September 15-17, 2000

I’m going to do something a little different with this post. My travel posts are usually done some time after the actual trip. Could be a few months, or a few years. My post about Guadalupe Peak was written 14 years after the fact. I’m busting that record big time by going back a full two decades with my trips to Great Barrier Reef Maritime Park and Hinchinbrook Island National Park in Queensland, Australia. What makes these posts special is that the majority of them will be a transcription taken directly from my hand written journal that I kept on this trip, with only minor editing for grammar, spelling, and that sort of thing. [Brackets] are me interjecting with clarifications. A little backstory first…

My family was always big fans of the Olympics. After the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, I decided that I wanted to go to an Olympics at some point in my life. Four years later, I was in a position to make it happen. I had a decent job with time off, and the 2000 Sydney games were approaching. So me and a coworker decided to fly halfway around the world to watch some women smack balls around (beach volleyball and soccer). But first, each of us would take a week to go on our own adventures before meeting in Sydney for the second week of the games. Bill would tour New Zealand with his parents, and I would spend a week on the Queensland Coast. The first part of the week I went on a diving trip on the Great Barrier Reef. The latter half of the week was spent hiking the Thorsborne Trail on Hinchinbrook Island National Park, which will be my next post.

I had just gotten into diving two years prior when I got certified before a trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands, and then the following year when I did some diving in Hawaii. So when I started planning a trip to Australia, this was a no brainer. It’s the largest reef system in the world, and I had to do it. I picked this dive in particular because not only would we be diving on the world renowned Great Barrier Reef, but we also were supposed to be diving on the wreck on the Yongala, a passenger steam ship that sank in 1911 in the channel between the mainland and the reef. Unfortunately, the waters in the channel were forecasted to be very choppy and it was decided to scrap that dive and focus just on the reef. I was so looking forward to that dive! But hey, I can’t complain though, I still got to dive the Great Barrier Reef!

Just getting to the dive boat was a day of travel so epic, I have not surpassed it to this day. Getting on a plane in my then home of Houston, Texas, I flew to Los Angeles, then a 14 flour flight to Sydney, then another plane to Brisbane, and yet another plane to Townsville. About 24 hours of just getting from A to B. And it amazingly all went smooth as silk.

So enough of the 48 year old me’s preamble, here is the 27 year old me’s thoughts on Great Barrier Reef Maritime Park;

Friday, Sept 15, 2000

After the longest day of travel in my life, I’ve finally made it to Townsville. The weather here is almost perfect; not too warm, no humidity, and cloudless skies. I sat next to some cool people on the plane. There was this cute girl named Fiona who just came back from living in London for a year. She works there just so she can get money to travel Europe with. Next to her was Jack, this old guy that reminds me of the preacher from “Poltergeist II”.

I checked into the dive shop no problem and stored my bags at the hotel next door which I’ll be staying at on Sunday. The dive shop had a shower room which I took the pleasure of utilizing. It was good to wash off some of the funk I’ve been accumulating for two days. After my shower I went down the road to the reef center. It has a huge tank with a fully functioning coral reef. They had sharks and big ass sea turtles.

After that I just walked up and down the main strip in town. It’s an open air mall type area called the Strand (I think every hip town has an area called the Strand). I found a store that sells didgeridoos. They had one that fit my mouth, and it just happened to be the cheap one. Maybe I’ll buy it on Monday. Right now I’m sitting at the open air McDonalds. I know what you’re thinking, my first meal in a foreign country is McDonalds. Blasphemy! Well in my defense I did order the McOz burger. I wasn’t sure what would be on it, but I got it. Turns out it has sautéed onions and… beets. I don’t know. I guess Aussies like to beet their meat (sorry, had to do it).

The open air mall is actually Flinder’s Street Mall. The Strand is actually the beach front area which has been built up in the last few years. After the Strand I wandered down to the boat. They weren’t ready yet, so I went up to the bar at the dockside restaurant for a drink. I had my first XXXX, the official drink of Queensland. The opening ceremonies were on, quite the production. There was a cute girl sitting at the bar that I noticed. A few stools down from her was a guy that was hitting on another girl that had come in. He was funny. He started introducing her to his friends like they had known each other their whole lives. After a few minutes she ditched him. The cute girl and I watched all this transpire. We gave each other a knowing look. The guy set his sights on the cute girl. He did the same thing as with the first girl. I could hear her introduce herself as Erica. After meeting his friends she politely excused herself and left.

After a few minutes I left as well and headed for the boat. I got on the boat and low and behold who did I see? Erica. We started talking for a few minutes, having a good laugh about the guy in the bar. Turns out she has a boyfriend. Oh well. Then I started meeting all the other passengers. Some pretty cool people. Mostly locals, but Erica is from San Francisco, two of the crew are from Holland, my roommate Steve is American but I forget where exactly. We stayed up talking for a while, but then I started fading fast so I finally went to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night rolling from side to side rather harshly. I finally just got up and went on deck for a while. There was a full moon shining on the water and stars shining in a cloudless sky.

Saturday Sept 16, 2000

This morning we were awoken to the rousing call of “everyone up! Breakfast is ready!” from Belinda. I tried Vegemite for the first time. One word: nasty. It looks like chocolate and tastes like bad salt.

The first dive went pretty good. Took me a few minutes to work out the kinks but then it smoothed out. Saw tons of fish, a stingray, and big reefs. After a two hour surface interval, we went on our second dive. That one sucked. 15 minutes into it I got too close to the surface and couldn’t get back down. Then everything started falling off me: my light, my watch, the dive master’s depth gauge. And my camera stopped working also. Well, that brings me up to the present moment. Lunch is on and it looks better than this book right now.

Hanging out on the boat watching the Olympics.

It was [later] discovered that the dingy had a hole in it. That set us back quite a bit. Our night dive got set back to about 10 o’clock. In the meantime we hung out, talked, and watched the Olympics. We watched as the Aussie men’s relay swim team “crushed the American stranglehold on this event”. Found out that one of the guys is English and another is Israeli. Watched the sunset. Once it was dark out I started getting a little light headed. I think it’s because I couldn’t see the horizon anymore.

The night dive was pretty cool. You can’t see anything without a flashlight. Not that it looks totally normal in the daylight, but the reef looks especially alien at night. When it was time to go back to the boat, Steve and I realized (after talking about it later) that neither one of us knew where the hell we were. We had been diving in the dark for half an hour. Just as I was about to suggest we surface no matter where we were, I shined my light arbitrarily to the right. The beam landed squarely on the anchor. Very cool. By the time we got back to the boat I was dead tired. I managed to choke down a snack and then called it a night.

SATURDAY PHOTO GALLERY:

Sunday, Sept 17, 2000

This morning we were once again woken by the angelic call of Belinda. She wanted to talk to us about doing four dives instead of three to make up for missing one. So we did our first dive at the crack of 6:00. I had a bite to eat first (hold the Vegemite). After the first dive we had a more proper breakfast; scrambled eggs and spaghetti. We continued watching Olympic coverage on the telly. The Aussie coverage is even more one sided than the American coverage. They are only showing events that Australians are in, and then they don’t say anything about the other countries. I’d like to see how some of the US teams are doing, but unfortunately none of them are playing Australia today.

Our second dive was very cool. We went to a different part of the reef where the bommies [an outcrop of reef] and reefs formed a network of canyons about 4-5 meters deep. It was like a maze at times. Saw another stingray.

Back on board, lunch was pizza. I don’t normally like heaps of peppers and mushrooms on pizza, but since I was hungry I made an exception. Oh yeah, I also found a dive knife on that second dive. I saw the blade sticking up through the sand, so I picked it up, shook it off, and brought it back.

We continued watching the Olympics, or at least the events that Australia was participating in. While I’m thinking about it, I need to try and list all the other divers before I forget. From America was myself, Steve, and Erica. Jacque was from Israel. Thomas was from Switzerland. From Australia was Hugh and Claire (the only couple), Jackie, Chris. M.L., a guy originally from Ireland but residing in Oz, an English guy, and someone else. The crew was the skipper, Wayne the dive master, Belinda, Steve, and two guys from Holland. Maybe I’ll remember some names later.

Our third dive, along with the last one, was the best two dives of the weekend. These went through a different part of the reef canyons. This time we saw a shark! As we turned the corner, I saw it laying on the sand. I’d say it was about 7-9 feet long. When it saw us it slithered away under part of the reef, so me and Steve circled one of the bommies to get a better look. We ran into Jacque and Erica and pointed out the shark to them. On the way back to the boat we saw part of a boat on the bottom. We went down and took each other’s pictures with it. It didn’t quite make up for missing the Yongala wreck, but oh well.

King of the world! Heading back to the mainland on slightly rough seas.

Once everyone was back and settled in, it was time to start the long trip back to port. It would take about 5 or 6 hours. The channel was a bit rocky so we were rockin’ the whole way back. After we started, I went outside to the front of the ship. I was by myself and just underneath the bridge. At times the boat would rock up to 45 degrees to one side or the other. Water was lapping up over the sides. The wind was blasting me in the face and their was nothing but open sea ahead of me. This was definitely my “king of the world” moment.

Back inside I sat down on the bench on one side of the boat. As I looked through the windows on the other side, I could see the reflections of the windows behind me. We were rocking so much that the view [out the window] alternated between nothing but sky, then nothing but water. Everyone was pretty knackered on the way back. Erica tried napping on the bench opposite me, but the boat wasn’t being very cooperative. Eventually, she got thrown onto the floor on one especially big wave. That’s when she decided to go to her bunk. The whole thing was quite comical.

Not long after I went down to pack up my stuff. Then I took a nap all the way back to Townsville. After we docked, everyone got together to say their goodbyes. Steve gave me his card. Turns out he’s an insurance lawyer in Las Vegas. Now I have a connection there. Viva Las Vegas! I said goodbye to Wayne, who never did say anything else about that depth gauge I dropped. Then we all went our separate ways.

SUNDAY PHOTO GALLERY:

James Suits Photography

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Great Barrier Reef Maritime Park, Queensland, Australia. Diver Down.