GBR

Great Britain? The Good-Bad-and Retarded? Nope, GBR is the Great Barrier Reef. This is the King of all dive locations in the world. Norm and I flew to Cairns and then drove to Port Douglas. I did the driving. I was a bit nervous but it actually turned out to be quite easy. You just have to pay attention. The hardest thing was I always found myself trying to get in on the left side. Everything is backwards. The turn signal is on the right side and you shift with the left hand. It also is funny to see yellow road signs warning drivers of kangaroos on the road.

We stayed in this apartment-style place and the hospitality was great. We went out on the Reef on both Saturday and Sunday. It takes about an hour and a half to get out there. The weather was beautiful. We rode on these big catamaran and went to the Agincourt Reef both days. All I can say it that diving was incredible. I thought about buying an underwater camera but I didn’t. I did 3 dives on Saturday and another 3 dives on Sunday. Tons of fish and beautiful coral. I say a few sharks. The biggest was a 12 foot Reef shark. I saw a number of Nemos (clown fish). On one dive we went to Triggerfish City. These big Trigger fish had laid their eggs and were very protective. You would be bitten if you got within a meter or two of the fish. There are these gigantic clams with beautiful purple and green colors inside. You can move your hand close to it and watch it close.

Most of the coral is very sharp and lots of it has a type of poison that if you scraped up against it you would quickly get a good rash. I could go on and on but unless you’ve been there, it’s hard to describe. It is quite a thrill to come around a large coral or over the top of one and you are surrounded by literally thousands of fish.

We had good food their (namely those small bananas that I thought were called apple bananas). You have to be careful along the beaches because of presence of jellyfish. The locals call them “stingers”. If you go swimming at the beach you have to be in one of the net protected areas where there are no jellyfish. Otherwise, you pay.

After dropping off Norm at the airport on Monday, I spent part of the day walking around downtown Cairns and shopping for my wife and children. I bought my wife a number of nice jewelry pieces. After the shopping I went to this crocodile farm. It was quite entertaining. We went out on this boat and watched these big crocs just completely out of the water to get a piece of chicken. Then I got a tour of the farm. It was quite interesting. I finished the visit off with a tasty croc sandwich. Yum yum.

That was my trip to Cairns/Port Douglas.