Embracing Surrealism: Snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef

My friend, Julia, and I went to Port Douglas.

First, we flew into the Cairns Airport. From the airport alone (murals, baggage collection, souvenir shops), it is easy to guess why most people come to Cairns. But it wasn’t that way for a long time. Our guide on a later day trip told us that the Great Barrier Reef didn’t explode in popularity until 2004. Until the release of… You guessed it, the animated film Finding Nemo.

Well, as per usual, I don’t like to follow the crowd, and so even though it seems like I’m following the crowd with my desire to snorkel the Barrier Reef, that’s only half true. My parents were trend setters because they traveled to Australia and snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef in the 1990s, way before Nemo ever needed finding. And, for as long as I can remember, they have spoken of the Great Barrier Reef as a thing of dreams, as a wonderland so breathtaking that it feels imaginary, as an experience that perhaps cannot ever be achieved in an other way. For over ten years, my mom has wanted to plan a family trip to the Great Barrier Reef. But money and time got in the way.

So the moment I knew I was going to New Zealand, was going to make that long flight, I knew I was going to also visit the Great Barrier Reef.

The entirety of my trip to Australia had been building toward this moment.

So I’m going to let it build a little bit longer. Because there are other things to do in Far North Queensland.

First, Julia and I visited the Wildlife Habitat in Port Douglas to meet some endemic animals. Endemic means that they are found nowhere else in the world. Of course, I’d encountered some already. The kiwi bird is endemic to New Zealand, as is the kea, the kaka, and many other birds in New Zealand, plus the tuatara (a lizard-like creature that’s been around for over 200 million years).

Australia has it’s own endemic animals as a result of being separated from Gondwana for 135 million years. Many of these animals are marsupials: kangaroos, wallabies, koalas. Monotremes are also exclusively found in Australia. These are echidnas and platypuses, which are mammals that lay eggs. There are also many birds and reptiles only found in Australia. The Wildlife Habitat didn’t have all of these amazing creatures, but we did get to see some incredible birds, like giant storks, lorikeets, emus. We observed koalas and fed kangaroos.

I found the kangaroos incredibly fascinating. In your mind, you know about kangaroos. You know that they hop and jump. But you don’t really understand how oddly they move until you see it in person. Until you see them crossing great spaces in giant bounds. Much larger, longer jumps than I had ever imagined. And when they move slowly, they use their thick tail as a third leg. It doesn’t act like a tail at all, but like a kickstand when they pick up their back feet and balance, like a tricycle, on their tiny front arms and their massive thick tail. Absolutely fascinating, and I am so confused on how something evolves like this, how it aids in their survival. But I love it.

We also met my new favorite Australian bird, the cassowary. It looks like a dinosaur with massive feet, glorious blue head feathers, and a strange plate/horn-thing on top of it’s head that grows bigger as the bird ages.

On day two, we took a trip to the Daintree Rainforest, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Daintree Rainforest is thought to be at least 135 million years old, and possibly as old as 180 million years. It’s not that they have found a tree that old (that would be mind boggling), but basically the tropical rainforest has existed in this spot on this chunk of land for at least 135 million years.

For those of you who are following along, 135 million years is how many years ago Australia broke away from Gondwana. So, this type of tropical rainforest still present in the Daintree is thought to be what the majority of Gondwana looked like all those centuries back. But, as Australia drifted away, it left the equatorial region and most of the climate changed drastically. Because the Cassowary Range, the mountain range just off the coast, traps clouds coming in off the low ocean (just like on the West Coast of New Zealand) the rain fall is ridiculously high in the area. This is what is thought to have preserved the Daintree Forest in its original Gondwana state for all those millions of years.

The unique environment of the Daintree, especially it’s plentiful rivers feeding directly into the sea, creates massive estuarine areas full of brackish water. This is excellent for mangrove trees and also for saltwater crocodiles. One average, one person a year gets killed by a crocodile in Australia. Usually it’s from stupidly swimming in the river or getting too close to the edge while fishing, but sometimes crocs will venture onto the beaches. Imagine a dinosaur-like animal (salt water crocodiles are relatively unchanged from the time of the dinosaurs) of up to 20 feet in length and weighing 3,000 pounds careening through the water toward you or lunging out of a still body of water that you swore was empty until a literal second ago.

Of course, that’s not the only concern at the beach. During the summer months when the ocean water warms, two kinds of deadly jellyfish can be found in the waters of Far North Queensland. The Box Jellyfish is a giant jelly fish with the bell or umbrella (which are two names for the jelly part of a jelly fish) of up to 12 inches and tentacles up to 10 feet long. It is also the deadliest jellyfish in the world. For this reason, signs that look like a human is being attacked by an alien are placed along the Far North Queensland beaches. Popular beaches will have a stinger net in place where it is safe to swim within the net.

But the stinger net really only helps for the giant Box Jellyfish. There is a second concern. Irukandji Jellyfish, which are also extremely poisonous, are the smallest jellyfish in the world. Small enough to get through stinger nets.

So, not only does Australia have a lot of things that can kill you, but Far North Queensland has the most things that can kill you, and kill in especially painful and gruesome ways. While I loved my visit, you could not convince me to live there…

There are also, of course, the spiders. The only one I saw was the Golden Orb Spider, which is plenty big but mostly skinny legs. Talk of others was frightening enough. I had no desire to see them, especially the ones that jump at you!

But, spiders were of a lesser concern than something else. Something else that was oh so casually mentioned within my first five minutes of arriving in Port Douglas.

Let me set the scene for you. Julia and I have just gotten off the shuttle bus after an hour and a half ride from Cairns. It is 8:30pm. It is dark. We are very hungry. We are happy to have been dropped at our hostel.

It is a lovely hostel. It has a pool (that we never once use or even stick our feet in) and a beautiful outdoor space. We check in at the bar and are given a tour by a chipper young woman from Canada. She walks us down a covered cement pathway, points out the showers and toilets, and then leads us to our rooms. As she shows us how to turn on the AC and lock the windows, she steps back onto the path, crunching a leaf. She glances down at her flip-flop clad foot and casually–casually-says “we haven’t seen any around for a few days, but watch out for snakes on the path at night.”

And she leaves.

I’m looking at the covered pathway, at the too-far apart lights, at the shadows cast across the ground, shadows I can’t see into. And then I’m looking at the toilet block about twenty steps away and deciding that I absolutely will not be getting up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and absolutely will always have my phone flashlight shining on the path as soon dusk falls. And then I try to forget about the horrors of encountering a snake on the path dressed only in my PJs and wearing flimsy flip flops.

But I won’t leave you in suspense here. No snakes were seen that were not in cages at the Wildlife Habitat and I hope that’s how the entire rest of my travels continue!

Just being in a place with so many dangers, though dangers that really don’t impact normal life to a huge extent (the locals don’t seem bothered, that’s for sure), felt strangely surreal. I didn’t feel any more likely to die in Australia than anywhere else. Car crashes are still far more likely to be my cause of death than anything crawling, slithering, or swimming around Australia. But just knowing what existed nearby, what evolved and emerged and formed and took hold in Australia is a bit like being in a dream.

And perhaps that’s not entirely off course. The Aboriginal people of Australia, who are, to me, the most fascinating thing about the country, refer to their origin stories of the earth as The Dreaming. I did some reading about Aboriginal Dreaming and Dreamtime, but it is very complex and their concept of time is not linear as it is in the west. I won’t be writing about it because I don’t want to inaccurately portray anything. Even the word Dreaming is said by some to be an inaccurate translation of how Aboriginal people refer to their worldview. Additionally, there are over 250 Aboriginal languages and thus at least 250 cultures with little and big differences, so speaking of them as a whole is already misrepresenting.

However, as with many indigenous peoples, their sense of self and worldview is very closely connected to the land and nature. As we walked through the Daintree Rainforest, information signs and our guide pointed out plant after plant that could be used for this or that purpose. Though the plants and animals and dangers are vastly different, each forest and ecosystem across the world seems to provide what people need in entirely different forms.

The last non-snorkeling activity that Julia and I did was a canyoning trip. We joined a group and went to Behana Gorge to get as close to drowning as possible while not actually drowning.

At least, that’s one way to describe this canyoning experience.

I did a half-day canyoning trip in Queenstown several months ago and was both disappointed and thrilled with it. I was disappointed becasue I paid for a 4-hour activity, but time in the canyon was less than an hour. But the 50 minutes spent canyoning were incredibly fun! It was so similar to my via ferrata experience in Wanaka where we clipped in and climbed on ladders and traversed cliffs, plus some extra stuff like walking through water, sliding down small waterfalls, abseiling through waterfalls, and doing a small bit of swimming. It was a blast!

In Behana Gorge, the canyoning was very different. We didn’t go anywhere. We would do one thing into a pool of water and then climb out and do another activity into the same body of water. Eventually we might move a little bit, but it didn’t feel like an expedition. I love feeling like an explorer, not like I paid a lot of money to hang out with friends and screw around in a river. Basically, we did several cliff jumps into deep water, abseiled down two small cliff-sides while not near any waterfalls at all, and then laid down and “floated down white water like a leaf.” But that part was the true drowning experience and I can’t say that it did much for me. It was fun to play around and the guides were entertaining, but it did not meet my expectations. I wish it could have been like my Queenstown Canyoning experience, only 4 hours long!

Alas, canyoning was a tiny activity in the face of what I had really come to Australia for: the Great Barrier Reef.

The Low Isles

I did a lot of research. I am sure this does not surprise you one iota.

I did so much research that I was swimming in it (pun intended). And what my research coughed up was that the two best places to snorkel out of Port Douglas were the Low Isles and somewhere on the Outer Reef.

As a newby snorkeler (I snorkeled with dolphins in New Zealand, but that is so different from actual snorkeling that I still considered myself a first-timer), I was nervous about snorkeling at the Outer Reef. It is deeper water, less protected, and big reef drop-offs. I was reading one blog post talking about how the big boats can’t anchor close to the reef, so you have to jump into deep water and then swim at least 30 meters to reach the reef through the deep water. I also read that some people jump into the water and are so shocked by how deep it is–how far away the bottom is–that they pass out. I also read that many years ago two people were left behind at an Outer Reef location and tried to swim across a deep water channel to a permanently anchored pontoon and disappeared. The theory for how they disappeared: deep water channels are home to sharks.

Needless to say, the Low Isles came highly recommended (home to giant clams, colorful fish, protected waters, and shallow enough to snorkel off the beach) and also were touted as beginner friendly. So Julia and I loaded into the boat with about fourteen others and gulped down our seasickness medication. Usually, I trust my mental fortitude to get me through without vomiting. But, his time, I caved. I’ve been anticipating this experience for the better part of my life so even though I was pretty sure I could get through it with only mild nausea and dizziness, I didn’t want to! So I took some ginger tablets and they were fabulous.

So no sharks at the Low Isles, but we did have to don stinger suits. I just told you about the Box Jellyfish and the Irukandji Jellyfish. The suit is basically a thin layer of fabric that feels like footy pajamas with a hood and mittens, but there is still a lot of skin on my ankles and my face that’s exposed. Google told me weeks ago that on average 1 person a year dies from a stinger in Australia. So, despite the exposed skin, I think my chances are pretty good.

We got to the Low Isles. We rode the small boat into the beach. We prepped our goggles with spray, sat down in the water to put on our fins, and set off into the unknown.

It was so shallow my knees were hitting the sand, but I swam further. The water was hazy. The sand beneath me was scattered with small broken bits of coral that swayed in the slight swell and motion of the tide. There was a small flash. Then another. I thought maybe I was imagining it, but then there were five all together. Small, translucent fish swimming through the water.

It got a bit deeper. The coral started to appear. Mostly brown and fuzzy looking–that’s the healthy stuff. There are spots, as I swim deeper, where the coral is strikingly white, like animal bones bleached by the sun. That’s the dead stuff. There is less of it than I thought. The coral is in crazy shapes and patterns: branches, waves, swirls, ridges like a brain…but it’s not as colorful as I was expecting. I know that most of the photos you see online are enhanced so I tried to keep my expectations low, but I thought there would be more color. It’s all brown and tan. The water is murky too, like sand or maybe minuscule bits of the fuzzy stiff from the coral is floating through it.

The fish, at least, are brilliant. Parrotfish swim around with mouths like hard little beaks and patterns of blue and green or pink and red. Tiny side fins flap like the most ineffective of wings. Little yellow fishies dart about and one with white and yellow strips and a little black circle. I see the husks of giant clam shells, but no giant clams, until the guide finds one. The way he talks about it sort of implies it might be the only one in this area. Still, the giant clam is astonishing. It’s a meter wide and the flesh of the clam is dark blue with iridescent turquoise spots. When the guide swims over it, the shadow causes the clam to suck itself inside the protective out layer. This, at least, feels like the magic my parents spoke of, the awe and wonder of the underwater world.

On the boat ride back, I ask Julia what she expected. She’s been snorkeling in Florida before and said it was pretty similar, though the visibility was a little better for her experience in Florida.

I expected more color, I admit. I tried to temper my expectations but I still expected more color. And more fish. There were colorful fish, but not big groups of them or lots swimming around at one time. And yet, the fish, the giant clam, the warm ocean waters. It was a wonderful experience. But not the magic my parents introduced to me throughout my childhood.

The day before I went snorkeling, I talked on the phone with my mom. She apologized. I hadn’t even been snorkeling yet, but she apologized all the same, for possibly building my hopes up too high. For her and my dad (especially my dad as he’d never been snorkeling before, just like me), it was truly one of the most amazing experiences of their lives. Before I ever donned a snorkel, I could picture their experience, because they’d spoken of it so reverently and abundantly. The turtles, the reef sharks, the giant clams, the color, the endless swirl of fish. The drifting and floating on the waves, so immersed that it seemed effortless to float and swim. So my mom apologized and wished for me to have the same experience as they did, but feared that her endless talk of it had boosted my expectations too high.

And I did feel slightly disappointed. My expectations were a little bit too high, though I’d tempered them quite a bit. Mostly I was disappointed because I wanted that magic that they felt, that tremendous awe and effortlessness that engulfed them at something completely incredible and unimagined.

Perhaps the internet is also partially to blame. For my parents, they had small brochures, but not the vivd, high-def photos splattered across the advertisements. They didn’t even have Finding Nemo and it’s brightly animated rendition.

I felt lucky, like I’d seen something beautiful. But not transformed. Not transported. Not wonderstruck.

That’s ok, I told myself. It was still beautiful and amazing and new. And I felt very confident in the water and using the snorkel equipment, so that alone felt like a win for the day.

So Julia and I snorkeled the Low Isles on the afternoon after the Wildlife Habitat. Then, we went to the Daintree. Finally, the next day was our full-day Outer Reef Snorkel Trip. I was excited because I was hoping the visibility would be better since the reef wouldn’t be so near a beach. I was also nervous, for all the previously stated reasons–the deep water, the steeper drop-offs, the wildlife, and that the reefs would be much farther below us. I felt comfortable in the water, but I did not yet feel comfortable diving down, so I didn’t want to be floating twenty feet above the reef and hardly able to see.

But I was also fluttery in my stomach with anticipation. Maybe today I would get to see a turtle!

The boat ride out to the reef was about 90 minutes. It was actually a sunny morning (all our previous days had been cloudy) and the water was a brilliant turquoise. It was obvious when we neared the Reef because the water was speckled with darker blue spots. The boat anchored and the guides told us our limits. Three boat lengths that way, five boat lengths back, and three boat lengths to the right.

The guides were smiling, telling us that these were the calmest seas they’d had in two weeks and the best visibility they’d had all month and hyping us up to get in the water. I couldn’t wait.

The water beside the boat wasn’t dark blue but the same shimmery turquoise. And when I jumped in, it wasn’t that deep at all. That was my first fear assuaged.

I turned toward the reef. Kicked my feet a time or two. And promptly got water in my mouth and throughout my snorkel mask.

Because I gasped.

Because it was everything.

There are tears in my eyes writing this, a tightness in my chest because it wants to burst with all the emotion and awe that cannot be expressed through little black words on a white screen.

I have not edited or enhanced or done a single thing to any of my photos. And the photos do not do the truth of the experience justice.

It was magic. It was transformative. It was everything my parents had ever said but more. It was the highest of expectations that I’d refused to admit to myself that I had, and then vastly surpassed.

The colors were vivid and bright and unreal. Many of the coral were still different shades of brown and tan, but mixed in were many bright ones. Colors not commonly found in nature except for the most vivid of tropical flowers, the softest of lilac purples in the heady days of spring, the deepest shades of blood, the green of perfectly watered and shorn grass. It was a kaleidoscope. And it moved like one two. Thousands of fish in all shades and hues, from tiny slivers of silver and blue to gaudy aquamarine and fire-orange parrotfish bigger than my face. They swam alone, floating along on the water. Or in schools, winging about in perfect unison like starlings. Anemones waved with the currents, corals burst out like the canopies of trees or tangled amidst themselves in overlapping branches like fractals. Pale cone-shaped corals, like a burst of stalagmites, seemed dusted with purple or green and glistened in the sun.

At one point, I saw a reef shark. Just a quick imprint on my mind of it’s spikey fins capped with black, and then it was already darting away. There were giant clams everywhere and clown fish congregating around a large anemone.

I felt like I was flying. As my dad had said, the swimming and floating was effortless. There was so much air in my lungs, wonder in my heart, that I don’t know if I could have sunk if I’d tried. Every few feet–every few inches–there was something amazing.

There, lurking beneath a coral overhand, I saw four or five massive fish, bigger than dinner plates, and with black and white stripes, simply floating in the current.

There were skinny fish, long and thin like a stick. And swarms of parrotfish in every color combination imaginable. When I pushed past the excited beating of my heart, I could hear their hard mouths scraping against the coral. Skr, skr, skr.

There was an angel fish. There, a yellow and black one with a long dorsal fin waving like a banner in the wind.

Tiny blue ones flashing like traffic lights. Big parrotfish, streaming through the water. Sea cucumbers on the sandy ocean floor. On and on, bright colors and fish of all sizes and an unimaginable world of which I am only seeing the surface.

The hour was up too soon. Thankfully, the boat went about fifteen minutes before we anchored up and jumped in at a new spot for another hour that passed like the flipping of pages in a book. I swam through the coral channels because it was too shallow to swim above them in most spots. It was perfect for beginners–no diving necessary. But, more advanced snorkelers could dive down in the coral channels. I tried it a few times, delighting in moving underwater and seeing deeper, but I will admit I still have to figure out the blowing out of my snorkel. I can never seem to get all the water out!

After lunch, we went to one more spot. Each location was as brilliant and magical as the last. I’ve done so many amazing things–hiking mountains, swimming with dolphins, rafting rivers, jumping off of bridges, laughing with family, dancing with friends, standing beneath waterfalls, sitting in a meadow as elk bugle around me, delighting in the aurora borealis, exploring ancient castles, and a million more things. But I struggle to think of a day that has been more incredible than this one.

The only thing that could have made it better was if my brother and my parents were there experiencing it beside me, as we’d so often dreamed.

But even dreams fade in comparison to the reality of this experience.

—

We did our Outer Reef Trip with Wavelength and I cannot recommend them more. First, it’s a snorkel only boat. Second, all of the guides are marine biologists. Third, they are actively out there everyday growing and planting coral for reef rehabilitation. And lastly, they took some amazing photos that they sent to us the day after our trip.

Their photos are much better than mine. I don’t think they edited or enhanced them at all (because they gave us a speech on how doing so was mis-representing the reef). But their photos are much better, so I am happy that they shared their beautiful photos with me!

I am so glad my first snorkel experience was at the Great Barrier Reef because I got to experience the magic my parents told me about untainted. However, now that I’ve done some more snorkeling, I am so so much more confident diving down and so much better at taking photos. I think my experience would be even more amazing with my new-found confidence. So, I guess I’ll just have to go back to the Great Barrier Reef!