You could snorkel or dive or do both. I signed up for an introductory dive. Our total training time consisted of a fifteen minute talk about the basic skills necessary for survival, which included four modules: a) breathing, b) clearing water from your mask, c) regulating the pressure in your ears, and d) mastering the hand signals to communicate with your guide. The hand signals included "okay," "not sure if I'm okay," "definitely not okay - can't you tell by my flailing?," and "look at that shark." I was pretty sure they were kidding about that last one. In any event, I think the most obvious sign of an encroaching shark would be watching my guide swim very rapidly away from me.
I should say that there were several relatively graphic moments in the training; words like "rupture" and “ear drum” were used repeatedly.
I suited up and sat on the back of the boat ...
... until I was commanded to fall forward into the water.
We demonstrated our mastery of the "life skills" in a fifteen second "test" and I suddenly realized how little I've appreciated the value of repeated practice and mentoring in my life. I apparently passed the test because the guide hooked her right arm in my left arm and we began to swim downwards.
Everything became a light blue. I concentrated on breathing and discovered that I could manage it pretty well. We kept on going down. Then my head began to throb and I realized that I'd forgotten to regulate the pressure in my ears. Down down down. I quickly switched life skills to regulating the pressure in my ears and promptly forgot to continue breathing. This was a poor trade off. I tried to switch to breathing again but only managed to start hyperventilating. I used each of the hand signals I’d been taught in quick succession and the entire group rose to the surface.
The second attempt was much more successful. I didn’t buy an underwater camera and I’m afraid any attempt to describe the reef would be similar to a transcript of Tito describing the earth from orbit: “um … wow … I mean, it’s just … um … not really sure what … just, wow ... it's just like I thought except ... rounder.” Advance press had been correct: the reef was great. Clams the size of small couches, sea cucumbers, a five foot horned worm that I declined to investigate further, and a universe of fish.
Diving gave me a different perspective on things. For example, it might have been the bends, but I found myself thinking that there's something almost graceful about watching a fish defecate as it swims by you. If you put it to classical music, it could be a scene out of Fantasia II or Apocalypse Now, like a jet fighter laying down napalm.
I spent the remainder of that day snorkeling and getting a nice, even sunburn on the back of my legs.
We spent the next few days sitting by the pool, drinking, sleeping, and walking along the boardwalk where we discovered something strange. Warnings about croc sightings and the danger of being too close to the water’s edge were placed in unobtrusive areas, such as underneath the boardwalk.
It’s that classic dilemma from Jaws: you gotta warn the tourists in a way that doesn’t freak them out. I think it might be easier to simply sell the Cairns boardwalk as a living zoo – charge five bucks and tell people they have a good chance of seeing a croc if they let their dog wander close to the water’s edge.
We also went to the Cairns botanic gardens where we saw the Smoked Ribs Plant.
