[2016-10-10: Gold Coast]
I was in a daze as I was woken up by my mom. We were on a tight schedule for our next flight. We had put all our luggage in front of us, so as soon as we landed, we could rush out. We were right next to the exit, I felt very lucky. It felt like forever until the jetway pulled up. We pushed, shoved and apologized, explaining how we were on a tight schedule for a flight to Cairns. We completed everything literally first, but as we came to the luggage carousel, I felt some doubt.
I stared at the luggage as they moved across the carousel. Finally, our luggage came…. but we had already missed our flight. My dad and I found my mom talking to the info desk. The staff told us that the plane waited for a while, but they couldn’t delay any longer. We had to spend the night here.
We hung out in the airport cafe as we ate something and drank coffee. We also looked on our devices for a hotel or motel nearby. As I heard the we booked a motel with a pool AND was right next to a beach that allowed swimmers, I thought “YES!!!”
As we drove to the motel, I felt a huge sense of relief. We relaxed in the room for a while, then walked out for lunch. We decided to walk along the beach. It was a bright and very windy day. I was surprised to not see the flags that marked designated swimming spots. As we walked on the beach, our bare feet made squeaking noises. I was very surprised that the sand could make the noise. The wind blew the sand and hurt our feet like a sting. We had to move to the sidewalk along the street.
We had lunch and picked up some groceries. We returned home, and tried to go to the pool. It was freezing! We ran back to our room, and took a warm shower, just to warm up. After dinner, I tried to fall asleep as fast as I could, for I knew that tomorrow I would have to wake up at 4:30 am to catch our 6 am flight.
[2016-10-11: Gold Coast to Cairns]
I had heard of the Great Barrier Reef almost all my life. I was so excited to hear that we had finally booked three days and two nights on a dive boat AND managed to get a day trip afterwards. I AM SO EXCITED!!!
This morning, I was so tired from waking up at 4 am that I used every chance I had to close my eyes or lie down. Once we were on the plane though, I was fully awake, and ready to rock.
We had just arrived in Cairns from Gold Coast. When we were waiting for our baggage, I saw a flip-flop vending machine, right next to drink and snack vending machines. What a strange sight!
Surprisingly, there is no uber in Cairns. We took a taxi to our hotel. The location was great. We were right in front of a giant mall. Inside were grocery stores, perfect for home cooking.
After settling in, and happily taking a nap, we ventured into the city center. I was still getting used to Australia after Asia. Even walking on the sidewalk, I would look behind me as if a scooter or two would come zooming by.
Before we walked to the dive shop and tourist info center, we found a place to have lunch. I was very surprised that we were in Old China Town. There wasn’t a Chinese word anywhere. The closest thing to Chinatown was an Asian Market. From the outside, it looked like they pretty much just sold rice.
We then went to the dive shop to book the dive sessions.
After the dive shop, we walked to a man made lagoon. It was probably the best man made lagoon I had ever seen. There was a nice beach, some fountains, and fish sculptures. The lagoon was salt water, and had a great view of the ocean. There was a lagoon instead of a real beach because, in these waters were CROCS!!?It didn’t occur to me that saltwater crocs would be around here, but why no crocs at gold coast?? The lagoon was still an awesome place to swim, even without the waves, and a full sand bottom. I was amazed that this too was all free. I guess that the government is trying to make up for the fact that you get eaten if you swim on real beaches. We swam there almost until dark… DANG!! We just missed the sunset!!
We returned back to our home, and made a stop at the mall for some groceries for dinner. All the shops were closing, it felt so different from Asia. By now, things would be coming ALIVE. We rushed to Coles, afraid that it might close soon. Luckily, we got our things in time, and returned to our room. My mom cooked up a great soup, the prawns inside were the BEST. They were very salty, and had a great taste of the sea. Yum, Yum! My favorite!!
After finishing the blissful dinner, I wondered if oysters taste like what these prawns, maybe this dinner was another step towards eating oysters. As for the final lesson before eating oysters?. . . PARIS here I (one day will) come!!
[12 Oct 2016: Cairns]
Day two in Cairns, why not check out the rain forest? Definitely better than I expected! The forest was very different from Costa Rica’s cloud forest. It was amazing to see all the different kinds of plants. My special favorite is the basket fern. It almost looks like a giant bird’s nest in the trees.
I also really like this one species of fig tree that grows from the top of another tree to the bottom. Over time, the fig tree grows big, and suffocates the host to death. This was the Daintree national park. It was very beautiful. Thankfully, it was as hot as in SE Asia, making it very pleasant.
Before the walk, we visited a Wild Life Habitat. It is so amazing to be right next to the birds and other wildlife. The way I put it is, “There is railing not to restrain the animals, but to restrain us, humans”
I especially love to see the two giant storks with their nest as big as a table for 4.
Also, beware the magnificent Cassowary! With its shark fin like horn, and giant feet, the Cassowary is truly prehistoric. They are about the size of an ostrich, and is the most dangerous species of bird in the world. Honestly, these birds look like they came out of Jurassic Park. They were so hostile, that the zoo had to separated the male and female, or else they would bat each other up. The Cassowary are only allowed to be together when they are about to mate.
We also saw Kangaroos. One even followed my dad for a couple minutes. If I were him, I would be very freaked out. Also, an emu ran across the trail right in front of us!!
After the two activities, we had lunch at a nice beach. I also built a pretty good sandcastle too. It was a nice little beach, seeing the island out there, got me very pepped about the day after tomorrow, Diving?!
After lunch, we returned to the car, and drove to the Dain River for a cruise. It was very nice, the breeze was perfect, the boat gently rocked. Then, the next thing I know, I see something black in the water, our boat nears. I see it more clearly, then I realize just the same time the captain said, “Croc”
He told us some really cool information about crocs. Here, these crocs eat meat immediately, unlike African ones that eat the flesh rotten. It slid into the water, these monsters ate the small white birds we saw by the edge of the water, nicknamed “Crocodile Biscuits”. I didn’t know that crocodile could control their heart rate, which means that they can stay underwater up to 3 hours doing nothing. No wonder they can live up to 100 years.
We also saw many mangrove trees. They grew from the bottom of the mud up. The little twigs sticking up are the ends of the roots. Tree roots need air to survive. Mangrove trees make up for it this way. The bacteria that is sent between the roots also help the fish. Daintree River is the only river in the Southern Hemisphere that has every type of mangrove tree.
As we drove back home, we had a nice view of the sunset. When we were dropped off at the hotel, I immediately jumped in the pool, as I wore swim trunks all day without swim. I stayed at home, while my parents went out to get ingredients for a delicious dinner.
[13 Oct 2016: Cairns]
Oh why does this need to happen? I want to dive tomorrow! This morning, I was super excited for the dive tomorrow. I told my parents how excited I was, when my dad informed me that the dive was the day after tomorrow. My mom comforted me with saying that tomorrow, we would fit our gear, I guess I should count my blessings.
I finally got to do some homework today. I was actually relieved to review some writing lessons. I think that my writing is deteriorating. Crazy, eh? As I did this, it started to get very hot, a great excuse to swim!
After lunch, we went to the mall to access community wifi. I was amazed that even in this luxury suite, you had to pay for wifi. I guess that there just isn’t the “Heads down on your phone” culture, like in Asia. We went to the mall, and did some research on the Indigenous natives. I found a timeline about them. What I didn’t understand was that one of the events on the timeline said that Indigenous natives “arrived” in Australia. From where, I think that it was probably from the pacific islanders in their little canoes.
We then did a little more homework, before having dinner. My dad said there was a grill next to the pool which would be good for making burgers. As we ate dinner on our outside balcony, we started to see shadows start to haunt the sky. At first, I thought that they were birds. But looking closely, I could see the outline of a BAT. We saw more and more. They were big, and looked like a species of flying foxes.
After we wrapped up dinner, we decided to take a walk along the Esplanade. There we saw even more bats. We actually saw one land on a tree. We got a good look at it. It looked around the size of a rat, but as soon as it spread its wings it was huge.
At the Esplanade, there were many street shows, we even saw a small fire dance.
[14 Oct 2016: Cairns]
After lunch, we went to our dive shop. It was an exciting affair as we tried on our fins, masks, and BCDs. The dive program was very organized – every person had their own bin for their gear. After trying on our gears, we went to the Lagoon. I was very surprised to see how much the tide had changed. From roaring water slapping against the seawall, to calm, flat, muddy water. The sacred ibis were there too, probably looking for mud crabs.
[15, 16, 17 Oct 2016: Live aboard Off the Coast of Cairns @ Great Barrier Reef]
These days on the dive boat were crazy. We would wake up early in the morning, brief, gear up in surprising chaos, and plunge into the crystal clear water. We didn’t even eat breakfast before our morning dive! It all usually just happens in a blur to me.
Live aboard was new to us. It took some time to get used to. The room was pretty small, so we hang out in the Saloon and went to the room only to sleep. In the bathroom there was a shower above the sink. If a person just took a shower before you used the toilet, the seat would be wet. Our meals on board were surprisingly good. I wasn’t expecting it to be so good. I loved everything. The cakes were especially good. Before that day, I would not enjoy cakes. Now I do!
On our first day, it was raining, and rough. I even barfed once on our way out! My dad ad I both felt seasick, and we’re both sailors! Yet somehow, my mom was fine. She took a nap. I feel like she sleeps through everything, no matter how bad it is.
They set up tarp on the dive deck to block the rain. My equipment was at the end of the tarp. Part of me was dry, and part of me was getting soaked. When I set up my gear, water splattered. I had to squint my eyes to avoid the rain.
This was the first time we dove without a guide. Underwater, we had several problems, most of them caused by complex communication underwater. We usually ended up surfacing in a very bad mood for an unreasonable reason. We once even popped up on the surface super far away from the boat. I was scared that something bad would happen. Luckily, the lookout spotted us. He signaled if we were okay. I responded with okay. After that I wasn’t as panicky anymore. We did our own debrief after every dive, and we slowly got better and better. The next couple days were sunny and calm, I wonder if sea sick of the first day affected our diving.
On the first dive, I was also very confused and shocked to see so many dead coral. It definitely wasn’t what I was expecting. Probably 1/3 of the coral was dead. Though as we did more dives, and in sunny and calm days, we saw many different reefs that mostly have colorful coral. Then, we saw the beauty of the Great Barrier Reef.
We went to multiple reefs. We saw turtles, stingrays, box fish, giant clams, cuttlefish, and many more.
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My favorite was a remora. They looked almost prehistoric, with a long, slender, silvery body, and a suction cup on its triangular upper body. I can’t describe it any better, you just have to see it.
Another favorite of mine was the nudibranch we saw. They are such interesting creatures. I love how they have their lungs on the out side (Nudibranch means naked lungs), it gives a great example of how well the living conditions are here. Something could easily have evolved to be immune to its poison and would eat it!
We went to many reefs, one of them, I could go through a coral tunnel! It was amazing to see the light’s rays shoot through the small holes in the coral.
One of my favorite dives, was the first night dive. We were guided. We found an armored looking crab, a prawn, a Flounder, and many red bass.
The red bass would shoot around our light looking for revealed sleeping fish. I guided one bass to a fish, and witnessed a kill, I guess it happens all the time, because before the dive, our guide said only one kill each diver.
The crab we saw was very funny. Our guide stuck the back end of a fork into the sand, under ta half buried crab, and wedged the crab up. The crab, having two shelled claws, split open both claws as if it spit out sand. It then slid over, and buried itself again.
Later, after seeing both the flounder, and prawn, I knew I would never want to set bare foot on the sand again. I realized how many creepy crawlies there were lurking in the grainy bottom. I didn’t see anything at the bottom, until, our guide pointed out two small lumps in the sand. At first it was hard to tell what it was. But as I got closer, the guide disturbed the fish with a fork, and made it shake a little, giving us a silhouette of the flounder’s oval shaped body.
We went along some more, while dodging some red bass along the way. Our guide halted again. This time, he had found a small trench in the sand. If you go to the beach, and drag your finger through the sand, you get a small line. That’s about how big the trench was! He stuck the fork in once more, and out shot a small prawn thes size of my thumb. It quickly sunk to the bottom, and covered itself again, creating another trench. It looks almost as if the fork is a divining rod for aquatic animals in the sand!
On the boat, I had a great opportunity to socialize with many people. At first I was very nervous talking to anyone, but what is the loss? I gave it a try. After getting to know everyone a bit, I engaged them more and more in conversations. Each of the divers had a different personality. I made many friends in those three days. I loved to learn about every person’s dives. Each had seen something very cool. One of them even had already done a couple thousand dives! One person dived in a place where you could shine you torch above your head, and manta ray will come swooping over your head!! I really liked many of the people.
On board, there were many books about the fish, coral, and other marine animals. I especially loved reading the nudibranch books.
Our Dive master, Martin, made funny speeches. He also knew a lot about every site, and their attractions.
One of the other dive helpers was a young man named Adam. He was funny in a crazy sort of way. A lot of times, he would talk about something called “Apple pen, or pineapple pen”. When I repeated it to other people, he shouted out from nowhere,
“Yeah! You got it!!”
It was very funny.
We also witnessed many sunrises and sunsets on this trip. It especially was great that there was a full moon on our night dive.
I definitely think I am going to dive with Pro Dive again in Cairns. I just can’t get over seeing so many things at the reef, and I am super pumped for the day trip the day after tomorrow!!
[19 Oct 2016 Off of Port Douglas in GBR]
We peacefully glided through the crystal clear waters, enjoying the view of the magnificent reef. We were on a diving day trip to the Argincourt Reef via the Proseidon Diving Boat.
I especially loved to see the Camoflauged Grouper, the Moray Eel, and the nesting Triggerfish.
The Grouper followed us wherever we went, once I got too close, and he partly opened his mouth, as if to bite off my finger. He seemed to follow us as we floated over the sand, but once we reached more coral, he lingered behind.
We were still following the line that the sandy bottom met the reef, then we came across a small reef around twice the size of my head. It had grown in an interesting way, leaving many nooks and crannies. I peeked into those holes, and found the body of a moray eel! I went over to the other side, and spotted its head. Not learning my lesson from another time, I got too close again. It fully opened its mouth, as if to bite me too!
We went into the reef more, and found a small sand patch. In it, there was a nesting trigger fish. This time, its ominous trigger was up. There were two things we were lucky about. One, it wasn’t a Titan trigger fish. So it wasn’t as aggressive. Two, it hadn’t laid eggs yet, it was still building the nest. We looked into the distance, and saw yet another trigger fish in the distance, probably its partner.
By this time, my fins were killing me! I had developed blisters since the fins rubbed against my ankles. I had to do frog kicks the whole rest of the way. This made me sinking, since frog kicks aren’t so fast.
As we swam along, we finally spotted a Humphead Maori (Wrasse). I had seen it a lot in the brochures, but I didn’t know what it was called. Luckily, our guide was a marine biologist. He even knew the weird names of nudibranch, like (–Look_up–)minor. The Humphead Maori is huge! It is almost 4 feet long! I am super interested in how these amazing creatures mature. Our guide told us that Humphead Maori starts as juvenile, then they become female, and THEN they become male!! I couldn’t believe it. Not only that, I learned that many fish do that, including some anemone fishes!
After the Maori, we looked out into the blue for some larger pelagic fish. We found a huge school of fish, and in the distance, we saw the intimidating silhouette of a shark!! It was about 2 meters long!! We only got a glimpse of it though, it soon retreated back into the vast, blue ocean. . . We also saw a sleeping shark in the reef. It was a white tip reef shark, about 3 feet long. It was sleeping. I was surprised it did so, because on the night dive, we found a sleeping shark too, although a different type. I also learned from our knowledgeable guide that the white tip reef shark would wait till low tide, then would crawl from tide pool to tide pool, to eat trapped fish.
My dad saw a long, yellow, striped, snail-like thing. After we returned to the boat, we found out it was a nudibranch. Too bad I missed it. Nudibranch are my favorite!!
Today, I couldn’t socialize as much as on the live aboard, I guess it was because I spent less time with them. On this boat there was some great cake too. I think that the Posieden trip was probably the best dive trip we had done so far. We didn’t argue, there wasn’t that much dead coral, and our guide was a marine biologist. How can it get any better?
[20 Oct 2016: Cairns]
Today is mostly a school day. I simply did my math, and did my writing. Before I knew it was dinner time. We ate outside, and watched the sky and city transform. The bands started to warm up, the lights on the office building flickered out, just one left, probably someone working late, and the hotels turned their fancy lights on. We again looked for some bats. As we did so, I gazed at the unique scene. I realized how mixed Cairns was. There were business buildings, fancy hotels, small shops, and local rough-and-tumble get-together bars with live music. It was perfectly balanced, like a cake. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. . .in the end, you get something very good.
Other places I have visited, either its full of all sorts of fancy hotels, like in Africa. Or there are really these small hidden restaurants in alleys, like in Vietnam. Or it may be a lot of business offices, like my home in San Francisco, California.
I thought back to home. I remembered that today was Thursday. I thought back to my weekly activities. I especially missed sailing. With the breeze through my hair, and the rudder tugging gently against my hand, I feel almost as if I left the school and stress behind, and can just unwind. It feels free to be roaming in the bay. I remember some of those days I would come back from a very windy day. I am cold and wet. I then get home, and am welcomed by my mom’s great soup. I instantly warm up to my loving and caring parents. I truly miss home.
21 Oct 2016: Cairns
The furry creature’s claws clung onto me, its zoned out eyes stared at the fake tree. It’s soft fur pressed against me, as the staff snapped away pictures. The animal was heavy, almost twice the wieght of a new born baby. Its long, furry ears tickled me as he turned his head. Before I knew it, the grey koala was taken away from me to the next person in the line.
I was still recovering from the experience, when I saw the koala poo. After that, everyone was given a cloth. I was lucky, I wasn’t given a cloth when I held it. It was quite funny to think that a Casino would have something like this. Not only that, there was a wildlife habitat above with 3 ziplines. I couldn’t imagine how short that would be.
We stopped at the man made lagoon once more. I played around, and found out that you could breathe out air from your mouth underwater, and it will look like you are breathing fire! I just remembered that I didn’t check on the tide there.
We had an outdoor dinner once more, as we watched the sun’s last rays lit up the building clouds. There were flocks of birds flying in. I remembered that bats would come out. It seemed like the birds and the bats were swapping shifts. The birds have the day shift, and the bats have the night. We also saw the Princess Cruises ship at the harbor. I wonder what they do around the coast, do they have a pool on board? There were many questions aroused by their presence. The most confusing one was,
“Where are they from, and where are they going?”
22 Oct 2016: Cairns
The alien creature seemed to be drowsy, with its curved pupils, and slow, waving skirt-like thing. On the front, the tentacles moved up and down, showing its small suction cups. The jelly like animal was well camoflauged, well enough that if you were snorkeling, you wouldn’t see it. It was a cuttlefish.
We dove some more, it felt a bit scary to see so many Titan Triggerfish nesting. I knew that later, I would have to be careful. Actually, many fish were aggressive, and seemed to be in couples, or dancing with each other. Other times, we saw some fish surrounded with their eggs.
Our first site, we were near a wall. We had dived this site before, on our 3 day liveaboard. I remembered seeing the nemo, just like this time. We also dived along the wall. I looked back at our new companions, two people that were friends of my mom.
I like them. One of them was a master diver. He had 5 specialties! He can even dive to 65 meters! It must feel good to not have to worry about depth as much. They were from the Philippines, a great place to dive.
Our second dive site was one we also had dived before. There were many coral bommies (Pinnacles) in the lagoon. I especially liked making my own kind of swim throughs in the coral half tunnels. We wound through them, looking, and seeing all sorts of great wildlife. We then came upon a large sand patch. There was an anenome, that I was taking a picture in front of, when the photographer spotted a cuttlefish. In a heart beat, I was zooming around looking for it. We finally found it. There were two. One smaller than the other. I also enjoyed seeing all the giant fish under the boat.
After our third dive, I decided to snorkel a bit, just to feel the slim, fast, aquadynamic feel again. As we were above, I realized that from the surface, you could barely see the fish. When I dove to the bottom, equalizing along the way, I saw more and more fish, even a whole school was revealed! I came up to the surface, it was now my dad’s turn.
After finishing our dive trip, my family, and my mom’s friends planned a nice brunch tomorrow. I am so excited to talk to them more. I love to talk with them, they are such great people!
That night, as we had dinner on our porch yet again, and though about our election back at home. It was Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton. The election was in less than 3 weeks. My dad explained more about the government. I was amazed at how complex and unique it was. Especially now I wonder how the Supreme Court decides on things, there is an even number.
As I lay in bed, I really appreciated the fact that I was on this world trip. I knew that decades from now, I would be telling my kids about this trip. I thought back to our first steps in Barcelona. I counted the next stops on our trip. There were only 3 countries left! After Australia, we would go to Chile, Antarctica, and Argentina. I was very fond of traveling like this, but also home was always something to look forward to. I decided on the first things I would do when I got home: pet my cat, take a shower, and lay on my perfect bed. My bed would not be creaky, it wouldn’t be hard, it wouldn’t be hot, it wouldn’t be cold. It would be perfect. I knew that it would be great to see all my family, and friends again.
Then suddenly, I realized something, what would I do for Halloween? I pondered over that for the rest of the night.
