Jan 10 - Cairns / Great Barrier Reef

Apparently there's a law that prohibits the motel to allow me to "da-bao" food so I wolfed down some toasts with a cup of tea, sneaked another one into my bag and hoofed my way to the Marlin jetty "E" finger. The seas are supposedly gonna be a bit rough so I actually started drugging up the day before, double-dosing too! Whilst waiting at the pier, one of the owners/captains noticed another "guest" eating a banana and told her that bananas are not allowed on the boat. Eh? What? It's a superstition based on real life. Back in the days, boats have ropes that are made of hemp and sailors would have to carry food that would last them 30 days at sea. If they brought bananas, the ethylene gas that bananas emit will cause the other food to decay faster hence reducing food stock. Also, the gas could be easily lit and the hemp ropes would burn and the sailors would have no sails. Ol' capitan said that the punishment for anyone caught bringing bananas onto the boat used to be to tie the person along the boat and sail like that. *gulp*
Home for 1.5 days - Rum Runner
My bunk bed
Panoramic view from my bunk. To the left is a doorway to a 2 double-decker bunk at the bow of the boat. In front of me is a doorway to a double-deck bunk and on the right is the doorway to area where the toilets and galley are. Accomodations were plain but they worked!
Finally, we can board the boat but first we have to take our shoes/sandals/slippers off. No shoes on the boat!! After I dropped my stuff off at my assigned bunk bed, we got our gear sorted. Dive master then gave us a briefing after making an interesting comment "I don't know why anyone would want to come here where we have the top 7 most venemous animals". Must have missed this little tidbit in the brochure. Anyway, it takes about 3 hrs to get to where the (other) captain (it was captain banana's day off) wanted to go so we're in for a choppy ride. I did survive the trip without hurling but it was close.
This is the reef we were going to dive at
Yay! First dive! I cannot wait to get off this rocking boat. I'm paranoid about jellyfish so I wore a wetsuit. It was a "refreshing" dive albeit shorter than normal cuz the 2 boys (4 of us in my group) used up their air quite fast. Drank some of the mountain dew I brought along for energy. Took 2 sips and uh-oh. I quickly climbed up the stairs to get fresh air but nope, that didn't do it. Rushed to the designated spot and merlion-ed the mountain dew. Oddly enough, after that I was okay. I proceeded to grab lunch to eat. :)
Where's nemo?
In case you cannot tell, I did not photoshop this picture
We were 5-10 m deep
Some giant clam
I think this is some kind of sea cucumber
I didn't photoshop this photo - see how blue that starfish is
School of fish that swam by
Turtle sighting!
Just one of the canyons we swam through.
Ok!
I was here!
Got to haul yourself up the back of the boat with your tank on your back after your dive
2 more day dives then it was the night dive. As we put our gear on, we heard a few splashes and my buddy and I looked at each other like "WTH? What was that? Sharks?" O.o Since I was the closest to the jump off point I got to go into the water first. Lucky me! :-\ I stepped off and into the water I go and made way for the next diver. *splash* WTF was that?!?! And then el capitan tells me "Cynthia! Swim to that point" directing me to go further away from the boat. Geez! I didn't have a torch either. Good thing the apprentice master diver was the next in the water and swam immediately to me and handed me a flashlight.

Once we're in a group and in the water, I felt much better. As one of the apprentice dive master had told us, there was this grouper that followed us during our dive zipping here and there. It's quite cool actually. At the bottom, we all turned our lights toward our belly to create a black out so we could see the plankton flash their lights. That was amazing! When we got back to the boat, I asked el capitan what that splash was. He told me that it was the fish that has been following us/the boat. When he turned on the bright lights for us to get into the water, the light attracted the plankton to the surface which attracted that fish to feed. Ahhh!!! Would have been good to know BEFORE we got into the water.

This is supposedly the grouper that scared the bejesus out of me
Anyway, washed up and settled in for the night. 19 people sharing 1 toilet - that was fun. The stars were sooo bright and awesome to look at. Too bad I don't know how to identify the constellations. Yes, I know there's an app for that!

Got permission to bring my bedding up onto the deck to sleep so I put my mattress on one of the elevated sides that is "over" the stairs and konked out but not for long. The moon was sooo bright I thought it was morning. Tried going back to sleep but kept waking up cuz I thought I was going to fall off.

Day 5: Great Barrier Reef