Nemo, Jaws and Overcoming My Fears

I will return to my tales of the Great Ocean Road in the next day or so, but need to rave about my experience at the Great Barrier Reef today first!

I spent the day out at Michaelmas Cay and Hastings Reef with the crew of the Seastar and about 30 or so other tourists, including a lot of US Navy personnel and their wives, in town after completing manoeuvres with the Australian Navy.  There was also a couple from a town 20 minutes away from where I live back in Canada!

The Great Barrier Reef is beyond description!  The coral in all different types, colours, and sizes.  The giant clams.  The sea turtles.  Nemo.  Schools of fish swimming around you.  The parrot fish.  It just amazes me!

A giant clam

This was my second visit to the Reef.  Last week, I had the opportunity to snorkel and SCUBA dive while sailing in the Whitsunday Islands.  I loved the snorkeling but wasn't too keen on the SCUBA diving.  All our lives we are trained that we can't breathe under water and to hold our breath.  SCUBA diving demands that you let go of that training and conditioning and accept that the alternate is true.  That takes a leap of faith - especially after signing your life away on all of the release forms required to SCUBA dive!  My instructor was really good and let me take my time adjusting to the water as I was psyching myself out more than a little bit!  Overall, it was a good experience, but it ended with my mask filling with water and being unable to clear it.  Not the most positive note to end on - especially with an activity that scared me to begin with.

Even before I left Canada, I had planned to go out to the Reef again while in Cairns.  After the experience in the Whitsundays, I wasn't too sure I would dive again but I also knew that if I didn't try again fairly soon, I might never try again - time would allow the fear and the bad memories to grow.

Michaelmas Cay

So today, I screwed my courage to the sticking place and tried again.

A friend had recommended the Seastar, having had a great experience with them the previous week.  He had also told me how, at the second dive site, there is a coral cave that you can swim through and that it was absolutely amazing.  I went out on the Seastar having already signed up for the first dive and willing to consider the second dive, depending on how the first one went.

My instructor, Ash, was amazing.  He literally held my hand (almost) the entire way through.  He was calm and encouraging, even when I was psyching myself out.  This time, it was less about being able to breathe under water and, reasonably enough after my last experience, more about my mask filling with water.  He kept giving me a new mask and adjusting the fit until I was comfortable.  I enjoyed the first dive enough that I immediately signed up for the second dive.  I even swam through the coral cave my friend had told me about.

SCUBA diving was an incredible experience.  I don't think I will ever be confident enough to do it on my own - the hand-holding kept me grounded and calm.  But I am so glad I got back in and tried again - that I didn't let a mostly good experience clouded by a bad experience at the end stop me from trying again.  I would have missed out on some cool sightings (giant clams, finding Nemo and, thankfully, not finding Jaws!) and experiences (swimming through a coral cave).

You can check out some of my photos from my time snorkeling here and photos taken by the Seastar crew here.

I found Nemo!

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