Yes, ok, we've been a bit absent again lately. Don't take it personally, we're not ignoring you. We have a great excuse this time. We spent the last week living and working on, and snorkelling and diving and turtle-spotting off, a boat on the Great Barrier Reef. I think that's fair.
"How the hell did you manage that?" I hear you ask. I shall tell you. The good ship Reef Encounter runs what they call a Hostie scheme, where you go on board as paying passengers but then when you're time is up, instead of sending you home, they put you to work. We did damn long hours, (15-17 hours per day), lots of making beds and washing up, but in return we stayed for free, had great food (three meals plus whatever we scavenged off the chefs), and snorkelled and dived every day. Exhausting but amazing.
So, the Reef! We went to Norman, Saxon and Hastings Reefs, which are all part of the Great Barrier Reef and all are crazy beautiful. Sprawling cities populated by fish of colours I never knew existed. Jellyfish bumping blindly into you like London commuters. Boulder corals the size of buses. Shoals of identical fish following each other nose to tail like cars in rush hour traffic... I've overstretched this metaphor, but I'm sure you get the idea. Google can't do it justice, but if you're interested, it'll give you an idea.
The highlight for both of us was when we went diving at night. Nel was very chilled about the whole idea, but as less than a year ago I was too scared of water to get into a swimming pool, I had a few qualms. It's a very big world down there, and it seems even bigger when you can only see the fraction of it in the feeble light of your torch. I needn't have worried though because when we were down there, it was far too interesting to leave room in my brain for fear. So. Many. Sharks. Luckily just reef sharks, who are harmless unless you're a small fish. Sleeping turtles, which have to be the cutest things ever. They make puppies look boring. Beefy Giant Trevallies pushed and shoved around us as they used our torchlight to hunt. Dozens of fat black sea cucumbers, and Parrotfish asleep in their mucus bubble. Yeah, we'd recommend it.
When our time out to sea came to an end, we crashed in Cairns with some awesome and generous people who worked on Reef Encounter and her sister ship Reef Experience, then boarded a plane back home to our Australian family down in Melbourne. It's so good to be back, even if the weather was a bit of a shock after tropical northern Queensland. God knows how I'm ever going to adapt back to an English winter. Guess we're just going to have to spend the cold part of every year travelling.
