She
cranked “Girl, You Really Got Me Going” on the speaker system then shifting
into full throttle as we rocketed off. The zodiac boat lurched and weaved as we
bucked waves as high as eye level on our way to the Whitsunday Islands chain, a
portion of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. It was there that our skipper Sarah
and our guide Crystal would find sheltered coves and lead us on remarkable snorkel
excursions in one of the world’s premier spots renowned for its coral reef.
We
were introduced to Queensland, Australia a day earlier when we were driven from
the airport in Prosperine to our rental house in the coastal town of Airlie
Beach. In town we met Val, the owner of the house we would rent for the next
several days. Our first impression that she was very kind and accommodating was
confirmed when we later went to a grocery store for supplies. The checkout
clerk knew her and her husband very well saying nice things about them (here,
everybody knows everyone, just like small towns everywhere).
 |
| The view from the porch of our rental |
Out to the Reef
The
next morning found us at the harbor and the pier where our boat would take us
out to the reef. The guy who manned the desk where we checked in had an accent
so thick, we didn’t understand a word he said even though he was speaking
directly at us. We nodded our heads as if we understood and walked out puzzled
but with various tickets and receipts in hand.
Stinging
jellyfish are apparently a problem at this time of year prompting us to follow
the lead of everyone else and use some of our tickets to rent a couple of full
body wet suits. These are advertised to prevent a tentacle from attaching to
our skin and stinging us (getting stung, we were told, results in multi-day
stay in a hospital so that they can effectively monitor your vitals).
At the
racks where the suits were hanging, the young woman took our tickets and picked
out our suits. After serving MK but before looking at me, she moved to the
section marked with the large suits. When she turned to hand me one, she looked
me up and down, put the suit back on the rack, and then, without saying a word,
shuffled and side-stepped down the rack past the extra-large section to the XXL
rack. It reminded me of the time when, as a pre-teen, my mother took me
shopping for a new pair of pants. When sifting through the pants in the
“normal” section for children’s clothes, the clerk approached my mother and,
while pointing to a spot a couple of aisles away, said, “the ‘husky’ section is
over there.”
After
trying on the XXL wet suit handed to me (it fit perfectly, by the way), we
boarded the boat for our bronco-busting ride out to the reefs. Sarah and
Crystal were gleeful as the boat rose with the giant waves than slammed down
into the troughs. They would laugh and cry out for joy while the rest of us
hung on for dear life.
“Bahahahahaha,”
they laughed in a semi-maniacal way.
 |
| Sadistic Sarah at the helm, crazy Crystal in the background at upper left |
All
the while, The Kinks sang their “girl” song on the speaker system, apt in that
we had two women in charge of the twenty of us snorkelers. It was interesting
that these two, young twenty-something year old women chose the original 1964
version sung by the Kinks instead of the 1980 cover performed by Van Halen. There
is indeed hope in our young people!
I’ve
learned via some hard lessons of the past that me and lurching boats equal
lurching stomach contents. I dropped a couple of pills of Dramamine before
boarded and they worked magically. No vomiting here. Others weren’t so
fortunate. Crystal quickly directed several of our green-gilled fellow
snorkelers to the back of the boat where whatever they had for breakfast became
chum for any fish in the area. As they vomited, she told them the “300” on the
side of the big Yamaha engines wasn’t their horsepower rating but were the
number of parts they would be cut into should they fall overboard.
The
boat mercifully slowed as we entered one of our snorkel spots. Like Steve
Martin in the movie Trains, Planes, and
Automobiles when, after surviving near death by two semi-trucks, he
wrenched his embedded fingernails out of the dashboard of the car he and John
Candy were in, I too did the same thing, only my dashboard was MK’s right
forearm.
We
were dazzled by the colorful coral, some swaying with the ocean currents. Schools
of fish, whose hues changed from blue to green depending on the angle of the
diffused sunlight, were within arm’s reach as they surrounded us. Yellow,
white, and blacked-striped fish, with a big black dot on the top end of their
tails shot past. A grey-headed, yellow-tailed fish moved about lazily. Huge
foot long clams, peacefully inhaling and exhaling the nutrient rich seawater,
shut their scalloped and fluorescent blue-edged shells as we floated by.
Around
noon, Sarah beached the boat so that we could walk around a bit and then have
lunch. The low tide exposed a sandbar allowing us to walk a bit in the shallow
waters before entering a bush trail that led to a lookout over Hill Inlet. The
views were tremendous. Off in the near and far distance, we could see the spots
we had come from and the ones we were still to visit.
Back
at the boat, we filled our plates with lunch. We were warned to cover them with
our hands to avoid an attack by the seagulls which had become habituated to
this spot, knowing it is where humans stop to have their lunch. In short order,
and after a momentary lapse in her hand coverage, the gulls swept in and attacked
MK’s plate. With fluttering feathers and squawking cries (by both the gulls and
MK), MK yelped, dropped a couple of f-bombs and, while waving away the gulls
from her head, threw down her plate, with food scattering everywhere. It was
just what the seagulls wanted her to do. They fought over the scraps and
cleaned up in short order. Smart little devils.
We roared
off to another snorkel spot but, due to the late hour, were only there for a
brief period. The numbers of fish overwhelmed us. Schools of them swarmed us
and the boat, especially the yellow, white and blacked-striped ones. The dark
grey ones, large as manhole covers, would let us touch them as they glided by. Other
very large fish darted through the crowd. They were so swift that I couldn’t make
out any of their details.
The
journey back to the mainland required us to cross open ocean. The winds had
picked up. So too did the swells. They were now over our heads. I approached
several of our fellow snorkelers who had trouble earlier and offered them some
of my Dramamine pills. I felt like a pill-pusher, right out the deep recesses
of one of New York’s boroughs. A young Germain girl took a pill but soon went
to the gunwales to barf. Her parents, as well as an Asian woman, were grateful
for their pills and kept their insides inside for the rest of the trip.
Sarah
had opened up the engines. We were skipping across the waves at 60 kph. She had her left hand on the wheel, her right
hand on the throttle, all the while standing with knees flexed to be able to
stand while the boat lurched and tossed. Crystal turned the music on again. All
the way to the harbor, both her and Sarah be-bopped to the tunes, belted out
the lyrics, and laughed that maniacal laugh.
“Bahahahahaha!”
Road Trip
The
flatlands we traveled through the next morning were in full crop with sugar
cane fields as far as the eye could see. Narrow gauge rail lines crisscrossed
the region, all leading to the sugar mills we could see off in the distance. The
fields gave way to rolling hills carpeted with deep green forests. It was here that
we admired the falls at Cedar Creek as the waters cascaded from a rocky outcrop
into a pool that, at this early morning hour, looked too chilly to take a dip
in. That didn’t stop others though. They seem to relish the cold water knowing
the heat that would rise during the day would come soon enough.
We
turned the car onto the Bruce Highway, Queensland’s major coastal road
traveling nearly 1700 kilometers from Brisbane north to Cairns. We traveled
only a small portion of it while heading to the small town of Bowen. The sugar
cane that marked the area near Airlie Beach was soon replaced by ranch land and
forest. Creek and river crossings were many. Many likely had crocodiles lurking
in them (ok, I don’t know if there were any crocodiles in this part of
Queensland, but if I were one, it was these types of creeks I would lurk in).
At
Bowen, we parked at Horseshoe Bay, a small, picturesque spot ideal for
snorkeling from the beach. Being a calmer day than yesterday, we were better
able to float the waters while examining the sea-life below. At one spot, a
large school of fish, all of them silver with a fluorescent blue stripe down
their sides, surrounded me. I looked forward, to my sides, behind me, and then
up and down. They were everywhere. I was within a hole that I had created when
I entered their school.
On
shore, I sat in the shade while MK took a turn at this natural aquarium.
Red-tailed cockatoos squawked in the trees overhead. After returning from an
overlook to take pictures, other day-trippers showed up to picnic nearby,
nibbling on their cold drinks and ice cream they purchased from a café across
the street.
When
MK emerged from the water, she reminded me of Ursula Andress in the scene from
in the first James Bond movie, Dr. No,
when she emerged from the surf holding her snorkel gear and a spear gun.
“How
about that!’ I said to myself, “my own little Ursula Andress!”
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