I’m sure everyone has
gotten that question, “if you could do one thing, what would it be?” Well mine,
for as long as I can remember, was to dive the Great Barrier Reef. The largest
reef on the planet (2,300 KM long) is also the largest living thing on Earth.
It houses the most biodiversity on Earth too. It’s got a lot of “number one’s”
under its belt. And I got to go there.
Before we left for Cairns, the town in Northern
Queensland that is closest to the Reef, I got to learn how to sail with my
adventure tourism class on Wednesday. Only a short walk from campus was Lake
Orr where I boarded up on my bright pink sailboat and, yanno, sailed and stuff.
It was actually a lot easier than I was expecting (either that or I’m just
super talented at everything). For a couple of hours we drifted around the
lake, caught a good wind every once in a while, tried to be a badass and shift
into hyperdrive with the wind, realized we still were noobs at sailing, then
came dangerously close to flipping over into the bull shark infested waters.
Ohhhh Australia.
After my sailing escapades were through, it was time to
go to Cairns! We caught the late flight out and got into Gilligan’s Hostel in
the wee hours of the morning. Gilligan’s is absolutely legendary. Everyone in
Australia knows about it and just about everyone who has ever backpacked across
the East Coast has stayed there at one point. It was indeed a hostel, a very
nice one at that. It was also a club. And a bar. And an outside bar. And a sick
pool around the outside bar. Even tired and groggy at 4am, we could tell that
Gilligan’s was going to be amazing. The Goon Squad was able to get into one
room, with 4 bunks and our own bathroom so we were living a life of luxury.
The next morning, I jumped out of a plane. We had found
an awesome offer that had both skydiving and scuba diving as a combo deal for
really cheap. So I jumped out of a perfectly good aircraft. Tandem Cairns was
the company we did it through, and it was about an hour’s drive from the center
of town to their airfield. I was an interesting mix of totally amped and
totally freaked out on the way over. We got to the little airfield nestled at
the foot of the mountains (Cairns actually looks a lot like Hawaii) and were
given our tandem partners whose job it is to push screaming tourists attached
to their chest out of planes. My guy’s name was Dan and he had some absurd
number of jumps under his belt, in the high thousands, and together, we got
onto a tiny plane cramped with nervous Americans and a pilot who also had a
parachute on. Nothing calms your nerves more than a pilot who has a parachute.
We climbed high into the sky above Cairns, above the clouds and up to 14,000
feet, which is the highest you can jump from in Australia. From that high, you
could just barely see the reef off the coast. As someone with a slight fear of
heights, I surprisingly didn’t feel that normal pit in my stomach up there. I
was so high up, my mind was just like “nah dude, that’s not even real, you’re
fine.” When we got to our jumping height, a few single divers at the back threw
open the door and then jumped. Or rather fell. It is a freaky thing watching
people step out the door and then just disappear. I was the last person to jump
too, so I just watched all of my friends fall towards their imminent deaths.
Then it was my turn! Dan pushed the two of us out the now empty plane and
towards the door with the wind screaming past. Right before we hit the edge, I
asked in a moment of mock bravery, “what are the chances of doing a backflip
out of this plane?” Dan just paused for a second, laughed, and sat us on the
edge of the plane, our feet hanging into the void. 14,000 feet below us, the
lush rainforest countryside sat waiting for me. One last little push off the
edge and then there was nothing. The first couple of seconds were a complete
blur, only after we had gone into “skydiving position” (arms and legs sprawled
out on our stomach) did I realize the gravity of my situation (heh gravity, get
it?). Dan had executed a perfect backflip and now we were racing towards the
ground at around 250 miles per hour. I had never felt anything like it. It was
absolutely incredible. I opened up my mouth to let out a yell when the air
pushed the sound back into my throat. Looking around and seeing the Earth
stretch out below me was insane, and with a slight cloud layer rushing towards
us, it helped to give a sense of dimension to the jump. At one point, Dan
pointed down and following his finger, I realized he was steering us straight
into one of the few clouds drifting lazily beneath us. Only a few seconds
later, we punched through the top of the cloud and Dan ripped the cord
releasing our chute. Now able to actually hear anything besides the wind
rushing past my ears, Dan takes off my goggles and says, “aaaand this is what a
cloud feels like.” After 60 seconds of free fall, we had dropped over 11,000
feet and now I was in a freakin cloud. We drifted lazily down and slowly made
our way back to the runway. I was so hyped up on adrenaline I had no idea how
long the parachuting part lasted, probably around 7 minutes, but it felt like a
few seconds. Dan pointed out the town as well as a bunch of land marks across
the area while we floated down. Finally reaching the ground, we conducted a
perfect standing landing and I was back on Earth. The experience was unreal.
That massive burst of adrenaline persisted while we all
raved about our individual experiences, but the moment we sat down on the bus,
everyone knocked out immediately. Getting back to Gilligan’s, we met back up
with Julia and Monika who had gone horseback riding. We checked out the
bar/club at Gilligan’s that night but seeing as we were going scuba diving the
next day, we decided not to get too rowdy.
The dive boat set out early on Saturday for the Great
Barrier Reef. I was beyond excited, this was going to be the pinnacle of my
diving so far in my life. I was the only certified diver in my group and there
were only 4 of us on the boat that day, so we were able to get an extended look
at this natural wonder. The first time I hopped into the water, my jaw dropped.
Well not actually, if my jaw had actually dropped, my regulator would have
popped out and I would’ve gotten a mouthful of water. You get the idea. The reef
was beyond beautiful. I will admit that the particular spot on the reef where
we were was heavily used, and the coral showed signs of wear and tear, but even
still, it was amazing. The marine life was spectacular. Every fish in every
shape and color darted across the ocean floor. I made it a point of finding
every fish from the Finding Nemo fish tank as well, and I’m pretty sure I
succeeded. The first dive with our guide took us far away from the boat to the
parts of the reef that were less affected by the amateur scuba divers and
snorkelers. Here is where we were able to find the soft corals and the
clownfish nestled in the anemones. I was also able to get up close and personal
with a sea turtle lazily gnawing on some kelp. Fun fact, sea turtles are as
docile as they are because the algae they eat acts as a narcotic, essentially
making them perpetually stoned. Nature, man. The rest of the dive was pleasant
and relaxing, swimming through coral canyons and gazing at giant clams. In all
the dive lasted about 40 minutes and afterwards I stripped of the scuba gear,
to jump in with the squad for some lazy snorkeling on the surface. We did that
for a while before piling back onto the boat to relocate to another spot on the
reef. The second spot was better kempt and the diving there had more marine
life to show. I saw a couple of small black tipped sharks too (Liam was mad).
After my dive, I again floated around for a while with the goons until we were
called back into the boat for the last time. We had spent the entire day on one
of the most beautiful natural features on Earth, I’d say a day well spent.
On the way back to shore, we apparently blew out one of
our engines so it actually took us twice the time to get back. They were serving
free wine, cheese, and crackers so it made it seem all the shorter.
Furthermore, we found out that a big group of uni students on the boat were
from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Mass. My brother had gone to college
there, and I found out one of the kids was in the same frat as him. To make the
world even smaller, another girl there was high school friends with my good
friend from Bentley. Here we were, on a boat, in the middle of the ocean, over
the Great Barrier Reef, in Australia, and we still managed to find mutual
connections with people. Degrees of separation.
When we finally got back to shore, we had taken advantage
of the free wine on board, so we were ready for our first true night at
Gilligan’s. It was a blast, we hung out with some of the WPI kids and it just
so happened that the rugby world cup final was on that night and guess who was
playing? Australia vs. New Zealand. Apparently rivalries don’t get much bigger
than that. So we watched the final with a bunch of the hardcore Australia
supporters but they unfortunately lost. At least I think they did, I don’t understand
the remotest thing about rugby so I just went off the moans of disappointment from
the Aussies. It was a fun night.
Sunday came around and we had nothing planned so we tried
to fit in as much of Cairns as we could before flying out the next morning. We
went to this awesome open air market near the hostel and bought some fresh
watermelon and coconut milk. We also decided to make our way to the beach,
because we’re in Australia and when in doubt, we beach. Cairns is actually kind
of a boggy area, so we took a short bus ride to Trinity beach, which was a
gorgeous little town. Matt, Liam, and I wanted to see the sunset over the
mountains behind us so we did some heavy duty bushwhacking to make it to the
top of one of the hills and got some stellar views of the surrounding area.
Hopping back onto the bus back to Cairns after a nice
dinner, we met the single nicest bus driver on the planet, who went out of his
way to get ensure that we saved a few dollars on the trip. Australia is so
chalk full of such genuinely nice people. We spent the rest of the night
browsing the little shops in Cairns. Now we encountered a problem at this
point, we had booked Gilligan’s for only 3 nights, with the intention of
sleeping in the airport for a few hours before our 6am flight. Unfortunately,
we found out the airport is completely closed until like 4am, so we were
homeless for our last night there. Remember how I said that Australians are
super nice? Well the receptionist at Gilligan’s decided to be a total bro and
let us sleep on the couches of the common room before our flight. I. love. This.
Country. We caught a few z’s, woke up early and flew out of Cairns with some
good stories to tell. I would be back to Cairns in couple weeks with my parents
too, so this city hasn’t seen the last of me yet…
