Live-aboard Scuba Adventure: The Underwater World’s Equivalent of Heli Skiing Canada, Part 2

The Search:
After an awesome winter of 2012 adventure heli skiing and heli boarding some of the best locations on earth, I had added some top heli skiing spots in Canada and an epic Total Heliski Tour to heliski the Himalayas to my repertoire. But like Yin and Yang, this year as summer rolled around, I felt something was missing. Then I remembered it was two years since I had been scuba diving. I don’t recall what happened in 2011, but my knee reconstruction recovery took most of my attention away from my favourite adventure activities, including scuba diving. During my last scuba trip to the Red Sea (See Part A of this blog), I’d vowed from now on to focus on ‘destination diving’ (the heliski equivalent) via purpose-built liveaboard multi day scuba trips.

I had always wanted to dive the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), but was under the false impression that the best time to dive there was the Australian winter. Well, I haven’t been home in the past seven years during the Aussie winter so had found myself diving anywhere but Australia. However, this year I found myself needing to be in Sydney in July and as such found the perfect excuse to nip up to Cairns and fit in a trip.Of course, I had no idea which commercial outfit to go with – there are so many trips to ‘dive the Great Barrier Reef’, including liveaboard boats. Fortunately I found my diving Total Heliski counterpart in Joel, an agent who specialised in recommending diving experiences (fromwww.Divethereef.com). Joel, a California native, has been living around Cairns for ages, dived everything and everywhere, and he easily answered all my questions. He pointed me in the direction ofMike Ball’s Coral Sea and Cod Hole Live Aboard Dive Tour. Thankfully, with just three days until the tour started, there was a vacancy so I booked my flight to Cairns.

My brief to Joel was, “I want to dive the best the GBR has to offer.” I knew I wouldn’t be coming back any time soon, so I wanted this to be memorable. The stakes were high, considering most of my scuba diving has been done in diving paradises like the Red Sea and Zanzibar. Joel told me that on the reef the clarity and reef quality/preservation improves the further north you go. So the trip I booked on was going to be a four-night/three-day diving trip starting in the pristine far northern reefs off Lizard Island (known as Cod Hole), a one-hour flight north of Cairns. The boat then ventures out into the Coral Sea to dive the Osprey Reef (or Osprey Atoll as it’s known) culminating in big wall diving with an abundance of sea life, including a large population of sharks, minke whales (in season) and manta rays. Yes, this was the stuff I was longing for.

The Start:
The trip began with a meet-up over dinner in Cairns. The first thing I learned was that most of the other divers were way more experienced than me – many by quite some distance. This was the ‘holiday’ that dive instructors take. Yay! We then wandered over to the boat Spoil Sport – our home for the duration, and were met by the friendly crew.

On boarding, I counted similar staff to guest ratios as in heli skiing in Canada – i.e almost 1:1. There are dive crew, lodging crew, chefs, ship captain and first mate. Kerrin was our friendly and entertaining trip director, a Kiwi with just the faintest accent reflecting someone who has lived in Australia a long time.

First Impressions:
That first day, we dived three daytime dives around ‘The Cod Hole’ region of the GBR, and ‘Snake Pit’ (both aptly named). My first impression was how surreal it all was. The water was so neutrally warm (a comfortable 25ºC), so bright azure blue, and unbelievably clear, it felt like we were swimming in one big live fish tank. The sense of three dimensions when you dive is awesome. At depth, you can look in any direction and be amazed at the visual perspective that is possible. Also weightlessness experienced when you attain neutral buoyancy from the diving apparatus, in such clear water, is a superb and eclectic feeling. On top of this, the coral I was seeing on the reef was so abundant, colourful, and in such variety, that you couldn’t design a better computer animated drawing – they seemed to go on forever in a symbiotic mesh of biodiversity that reminded me of a small town when viewed from the air. This ‘town’ was made up of the most colourful corals such as fans, brain corals, anemones, psychedelic giant clam shells and bright blue star fish to name a few. Large sea cucumbers lay still all over the sea floor in all sizes, shapes, and colours (imagine ones with prongs like a pineapple’s, over a metre in length).

On boarding, I counted similar staff to guest ratios as in heli skiing in Canada –
i.e almost 1:1. There are dive crew, lodging crew, chefs, ship captain and first mate. Kerrin was our friendly and entertaining trip director, a Kiwi with just the faintest accent reflecting someone who has lived in Australia a long time.

The first evening, Spoil Sport taxied at a healthy speed up the far north towards Cod Hole yet it took all night for us to reach the first dive site, just off the pristine Lizard Island. In the evening we were briefed on the boat and dive safety by our crew. We were also offered various options to work towards, one of them being a Nitrox certification, which allows you to dive with a higher O2 mix in your tank than air (around 32% instead of 21%), meaning you can dive deeper for longer and don’t feel as tired because the extra O2 replaces the nitrogen. After some consideration, I decided to do the course because I don’t like the fatigue you get at the end of a dive day. I hate studying, but somehow studying for my own well-being and safety in a sport I love I don’t mind as much.

On arrival the first morning of diving, we awoke to Kerrin’s cries of ‘Dive Briefing’ calling us to assemble on the Dive Deck. Dive briefings cover what we will be diving, what we should see, and what to watch out for, whether it be heavy current or particular wildlife.

The first evening, Spoil Sport taxied at a healthy speed up the far north towards Cod Hole yet it took all night for us to reach the first dive site, just off the pristine Lizard Island. In the evening we were briefed on the boat and dive safety by our crew. We were also offered various options to work towards, one of them being a Nitrox certification, which allows you to dive with a higher O2 mix in your tank than air (around 32% instead of 21%), meaning you can dive deeper for longer and don’t feel as tired because the extra O2 replaces the nitrogen. After some consideration, I decided to do the course because I don’t like the fatigue you get at the end of a dive day. I hate studying, but somehow studying for my own well-being and safety in a sport I love I don’t mind as much.

On arrival the first morning of diving, we awoke to Kerrin’s cries of ‘Dive Briefing’ calling us to assemble on the Dive Deck. Dive briefings cover what we will be diving, what we should see, and what to watch out for, whether it be heavy current or particular wildlife.

Then, there were the animals… Joel certainly wasn’t letting me down. I’d been led to believe that we’d see some pretty gnarly wildlife, the clincher being sharks. However, with the exception of the Red Sea, I wasn’t prepared for the delight I would experience from seeing so much wildlife at every turn on my Great Barrier Reef Scuba Adventure. Just when you start cruising on your dive, thinking you’ve seen it all before, around the next bend you would inevitably come face to face with the most colourful and bemused fish staring at you as if to say, “Don’t look so surprised to see me, I’ve lived here forever you know!”

Starting with the fish, I am certain we saw every family of fish there is in the Coral Sea, judging by my recollection in comparison with the boat’s reference fish books. As we dove more and more, I became fascinated with not just seeing them but how fish live – i.e. some seem to live in couples, others in schools, some swim around busily on their own, some are nomadic, others ‘residents’ of certain corals or anemones like Nemo. Incidentally, it was interesting to learn from the dive masters, that the film Finding Nemo was actually a very accurate depiction of marine life – a kind of Days of Our Lives for the fish world, as it were.

Starting with the fish, I am certain we saw every family of fish there is in the Coral Sea, judging by my recollection in comparison with the boat’s reference fish books. As we dove more and more, I became fascinated with not just seeing them but how fish live – i.e. some seem to live in couples, others in schools, some swim around busily on their own, some are nomadic, others ‘residents’ of certain corals or anemones like Nemo. Incidentally, it was interesting to lean from the dive masters, that the film Finding Nemo was actually a very accurate depiction of marine life – a kind of Days of Our Lives for the fish world, as it were.

Some fish have tremendous stories, like those who change sex during their life cycle, (many), and others like the enormous Potato Cod, who can become so large that the sharks pale into significance. On our first night dive, at Cod Hole, we received an entertaining insight into the lives of the Potato Cod. After about 20 minutes of swimming around generally admiring the nightscape, we encountered not one but four huge (as big as me) Potato Cods at very close range – they swam within grabbing distance, sometimes no more than 10cm from us, as they weaved and hunted around us, using our torch lights as hunting tools. We had been briefed by Kerrin that this might happen and not to point the torches at the other fish too much, but we were not prepared for the group hunting behaviour, nor for the size of the fish they would be after and inevitably hunt quite large fish. When one of the weaving Potato Cod did finally corner and kill one, we heard an almighty crunch as it engorged the fish and re-emerged from around the rock, looking very pleased and noisily chewing on the remnants.

Dangerous Creatures:
We then ventured over to the dive site called ‘Snake Pit’. Here we saw several sea snakes, which although they are more venomous than land snakes they can’t bite us as their fangs are too small – apparently! Still, seeing them shuffle in the water was bizarre and I felt a bit weirded out by them.

Sharks. Once we arrived at the Osprey Reef, I overcame my initial fears when I saw one beneath me. Just a White Tip Reef Shark – fine, it’s sitting there I thought. Then I looked around and saw several of the more sharky-looking creatures at quite some distance awa. None looked interested in coming closer. In fact, the opposite, they were shyer than all of the other fish put together. That still didn’t take away from their reptile-like looking faces and my recollections of their violent, aggressive capabilities from TV documentaries.

The Shark Feed Dive:
On the last day we had the ultimate experience. It was called ‘The Shark Feeding Dive’. Like heli skiing, when things get fun they usually also get a little more risky. As such, an extra waiver was brought out for us to sign. It was to limit Mike Ball’s liability for the Shark Feed and an acceptance of extra risk by us. Mmm, Joel still not disappointing me. After we unanimously signed the waivers, they briefed the dive that we would all descend together to around 15m, and sit against a wall in an amphitheatre style and watch a shark feeding. Tuna heads would be lowered in a metal bin, and at the penultimate moment, the lid would be pulled off by rope and pulley and in they would go.

Well, as soon as my head went under the water, I peered down through the perfectly clear water and all I saw were sharks circling below us – large and small swimming around. They knew the score. It was going to be on for young and old. I also saw our dive masters and videographer sitting at depth, waiting. It’s going to be amazing I thought as I descended through a school of sharks. After about 12 minutes of anticipation watching these creatures circle round and round to get their anticipation up, Kerrin lifted the lid and out popped the tuna heads.

What happened next, you can see in the video and the photos. It was epic. It looked like we were watching a documentary, but hang on – no I wasn’t, I was actually there. I had to pinch myself as I was having sensory overload. The sharks were competing to chomp on the chain holding the tuna, shaking their heads left and right to release the flesh. Then out of nowhere, a game Potato Cod would steal off with a good chunk. The whole charade lasted for around five minutes, after which the tuna heads were disintegrated, and there were two types of exits – sharks who looked pleased and satisfied and those who looked a bit cheated. We were given the all clear to go diving now once the sharks had started leaving. Of course, they didn’t leave. They were hanging around, just in lower concentrations. We completed the rest of this dive in bewildered reflection, wondering just a little whether any of the sharks would be remotely interested in us, but they weren’t. It was truly a fantastic experience and could only be topped by an intimate whale sighting or a close encounter with Manta Rays… a target for a future dive trip, I have decided.

The Aftermath:
On deck that evening, the crew hosted an Aussie BBQ complete with Aussie sparkling wine, shrimp on the barbie, kangaroo (tenderly cooked) and snags, accompanied by Captain Peter (aka the pirate) playing guitar, telling Aussie yarns (like the hilarious one about scuba diving being invented by his old uncle PADI in Wagga Wagga) and singing Waltzing Matilda. And so, we went to bed for our quite rocky trip back overnight from the Osprey Reef to Lizard Island for our flight back the next morning to Cairns.

Just when you think there’s going to be nothing left to photograph, we awoke in port at beautiful Lizard Island for the magical low-level scenic plane ride back to Cairns. We passed the entire swathe of reefs on the way, topped by a manta ray pod sighting. As we flew over what seemed like continuous reefs, azure water – you get the picture – I thought to myself this is what life’s all about. These adventures are what make me get up and go to work, and the insight into this fascinating underwater nature world. Until next time I go diving, I’ll be thinking about everything that happened on this trip. Oh, and my next Heliski adventure, naturally!