I hadn’t gotten SCUBA certified this summer. I thought the snorkeling would be good enough. I was a little surprised when we got here and a fairly large number of people on the trip were certified and very excited about diving on the Great Barrier Reef. Their excitement was catching, and I began to wish I had sorted out the logistics and gotten certified. Then I found out about introductory dives; it’s possible for people who have never been SCUBA diving in their life (me) to go on an “introductory dive” – a much more closely guided dive with a Dive Master – after minimal training at the dive site itself. It was one of those dream-come-true moments. Okay, that’s exaggeration, but there is a really special feeling when something that you wanted but considered unattainable turns out to be possible after all.
Despite that, I almost didn’t go. SCUBA diving is expensive, and I kind of wanted the free day just to rest (particularly because I was tired when I first attempted to make the decision). But the next morning I thought, “It’s the Great Barrier Reef. This is like the most famous dive spot in the world. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” So off I went. 🙂
The boat took us about an hour and a half out from port to the Outer portion of the reef. The outer portion is supposed to be a more interesting and more undamaged ecosystem. On the ride out, the instructors gave a very rudimentary lesson on SCUBA safety to the introductory divers. There were three dive spots, and I was to dive at the second two. At the first dive spot, called The Three Sisters, I got to snorkel. It was gorgeous. The coral was shaped creatively enough to be the work of Dr. Seuss, but it had an elegance and a lack of silliness that belies that analogy. And the fish were even more colorful and incredible. There were parrot fish, angel fish, clown fish, fish that looked familiar but whose names I couldn’t remember, schools and schools of fish. The water was very clear, and even snorkeling along the surface, I could see almost all of the depth of the reef.
Our second location – the spot of my first ever SCUBA dive – was only a ten minute boat ride from the first spot. Our instructor ran over the basic instructions we’d been given on the ride out, and we got all our gear on, made our way awkwardly down the steps at the back of the boat, and jumped into the water. Once in the water, we held onto a rope to practice our skills. We started by practicing inflating and deflating our life-vest-type-things. Then we deflated them and went under the water. We let a little water into our masks and practiced clearing our masks. The final practice was letting go of the regulator (that’s your air supply), switching to the emergency air, and clearing the water from your mouth. Then we switched back. I expected that switching the regulator and not having air for a bit would be the scariest part, but that was fine. What was scarier was simply breathing under water. It took me quite a while to settle my breathing and feel comfortable, but once I did, I really enjoyed it.
It was more difficult to swim around in our introductory group than I expected. You wouldn’t think that swimming at the same depth as the instructor without crowding out the other three people on the lesson would be hard, but it was. Sometimes it felt – despite our best efforts to stay in order – that we were putting the instructor in the situation of herding cats. In spite of that, it was definitely worth paying the extra to dive instead of just snorkeling. The reef felt so much more real when I was down in the water with it. When you see it in pictures, the Great Barrier Reef feels otherworldly. Even when snorkeling above it, there was a bit of a feeling of looking at a video or picture. But once I was down there, it felt so real.
The most special part of that first dive – we saw a sea turtle. You know that serene, noble music that they always play behind videos of sea turtles swimming? In real life, they don’t need that soundtrack. They made me feel that way all on their own. I had the feeling of witnessing something of rare and untouchable beauty. Just the chance to see it felt like a gift, especially on my first-ever SCUBA dive. And the name of that dive site was Turtle Bay. Perfect. 🙂
The second dive, at a place called Castle Rock, was – excepting the turtle – even better than the first. We were more comfortable under the water, and we had more time, as we didn’t need to devote the time to training. We jumped off the side of the boat, like the certified divers did, instead of climbing down the steps to the training site. The drop off the side was about a meter and a half. Lots of fun. 🙂
And the sea life… The corals of the reef are absolutely enormous. Round corals that looked a bit like brains got as big as smart cars. There were blue antler-shaped corals that far outdid the racks of the biggest elk. Giant clams. An anemone guarded by a few big clownfish and filled with lots and lots of baby clownfish. A baby reef shark resting under a ledge. We petted a giant sea cucumber, more than two feet in length. It was almost velvety-soft. Later, our instructor pointed out a school of tiny black and white fish, each no more than two inches long. He pulled out a magnetic writing tablet and wrote, “Deadly.” Those cute little fish can kill a full-grown human. The sting of one won’t do it, but if one barbs you, the rest of the school will come after you, too. Fortunately, they don’t attack unless you attack them first.
It was an amazing, incredible, wonderful experience. At one point, as I waited on my knees on a stretch of sandy seabed while the instructor took one of the other students over to see the reef shark, I looked up at the dappled bright surface of the water and felt I was in a cathedral. The glory of God was there in the silence, the bright colors, and the teeming life of that watery world.
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