Diving in the Whitsundays in 2010

Pete was v keen for me to do a proper dive, as a reward for my efforts getting my PADI certificate last year, so we set off from Hamilton Island to the closest bit of the actual Barrier Reef.

It took about two hours to get out to Bait Reef.  We moored there on the one free buoy and had a half hour of snorkelling – Pete was on a mission to get into Hook Reef while the tide was right, so no hanging about!  It was very nice, ofcourse – beautiful clear water, fish, coral, but not as beautiful as Blue Pearl Bay, where we had been the day before with the Wakefields.  Never mind; we were very happy because we saw a shark.  A very small one, about half as big as me, but indisputably shark-like, swimming about busily below us.

Getting into Hardy’s Lagoon was a bit breath-taking.  Hook, Line and Sinker Reefs surround this lagoon, and it is like negotiating a maze to get in there, to the diving pontoons.   We finally managed, after a bit of hair-raising only-just getting over the coral bommies….aagghh… Finally we moored on a great big mooring buoy near the operating pontoon.  The other one, bobbing about a hundred metres away, has obviously been abandoned and it is home to hundreds of very happy raucous seabirds, who are busily turning it into a mound of guano.

Pete took the tender in to negotiate a place for us to moor, and a dive with a dive master, while I steered the boat v nervously around the narrow channel between the reef and the pontoons, trying not to drift backwards into delicate coral or forwards into…umm…delicate coral.  There was a huge mooring, made out of a tractor tyre, and we happily tied up to that, but an angry young bloke came zipping across in a motorboat to tell us to get OFF right now, thank you very much.   I think he put the reef far more in peril by having me in charge of the boat in the narrow channel… But you will be pleased to hear all was well and I did no damage.  In the meantime, Pete was on the pontoon, getting us organised for our next Attenborough moment.  He has the gift of the gab, our Pete… Within minutes we were moored on a big commercial buoy in Hardy’s Lagoon, and within half an hour we were getting our gear organised for a real dive on the Barrier Reef.  I hadn’t admitted to this but I was terrified… I haven’t been diving since I did my course in May, and I had very serious doubts about whether I would be able to do it ever again.   I was very proud of having attained my special plastic card, with a picture of pretty coral and not–so-pretty me gazing anxiously into the camera, but I had no confidence at all in my ability to get down deep, keep my earls equalised and my eardrums from bursting, keep breathing, stay alive etc etc…

Pete, however, is an unstoppable force of nature.  He was determined that I should dive on the Barrier Reef, and there was no way I could begin to explain that ummmm…maybe…I just couldn’t… It was the end of the day, about 4pm, and all the dive expeditions had departed, on Fantasea, the big boat which brings them out from Airlie Beach.  There were only three people left on the pontoon, a skeleton crew staying overnight.  One of them, Jen from Manchester, is a dive master, and she was quite happy to take us out, although it was supposed to be the end of her work day.  She was very calm, competent, pleasant, and it turned out to be just wonderful.  For a start, this pontoon has a most fabulous diving facility.  We went down into an enclosed pool area under the platform where we could easily hold onto the railings and put our flippers on.  Then we followed Jen holding onto a firm rope which led down to about 14 metres.  So easy and gradual; I was able to unblock my ears every ten seconds or so; by the time we were right down my ears were fine, no pain, no about-to-burst eardrums.   I was SO happy.  We swam against the current along the reef wall for twenty minutes, then back for another twenty minutes, with five minutes getting back to the surface.   It was ofcourse, magical and fabulous.  And best of all – I found a huge sea turtle, just idling near the reef wall, gazing into the middle distance.  We went right up close to it, about a metre away, and gazed at it lovingly.  Davina Attenborough strikes again!  Jen said they don’t always see turtles; it is very noisy during the day near the pontoon, and the turtles keep away. 

When we were getting changed, I asked Jen if they do night dives.  She shuddered and said, “No – the boys sometimes go out, for their own amusement, but you wouldn’t catch me going in the water at night!”  We asked why and she said, “That is when the really big sharks come in.  It is too noisy for them during the day…”  When we were back on 2XS Pete and I spent quite a lot of time gazing hopefully into the water with his spotlight and his underwater viewer, hoping to see the big sharks coming in…but not a sight of any fish at all.

Yesterday we got up at 5.30 and made our way out of the maze of coral.  We had to leave then; it all depended on the tide, and the visibility.  I had to stand up the front and watch out for coral bommies… I have lost several years of my life, this was very nerve-racking… I would hold up my hand and shout, “Stop!  Go back!  You can’t go forwards...or backwards…or left…or right…maybe there’s a small gap just over there…” And yes we did make it but oh dear….