Sleeping on the great barrier reef

After the Earth Frequency Festival I came back to Cairns just because of ma Sheila (my car). Unfortunately it turned out that she didn’t pass the safety check which I had to do to renew the registration. From one to the other moment she was just a bunch of spare parts. Some frustrating days passed without any progress. On friday night I decided to escape the inconvenient situation and booked “a night on the reef”.

Next morning at 6.30am I found myself on a fast boat shipping away from dry land. Next destination: The Reef Encounter

The fillet piece of all diving opportunities on the Reef Encounter is the night dive. Armed with just a torch we went down into the pure darkness and experienced a quite different fauna. While turtles slept under rocks and small fishes hid deep inside corals, lots of big hunter roaming restlessly around the reef. Attracted by our light they followed and abused us for finding prey. Giant Trevallies, White Tail Reef Sharks and other big fishes were anything but shy. It was exciting and a bit scary to see so much of them. Luckily they have a strict diet.

After the first day I became a Hostie, which relegated me to the base of the food chain. I took care of dirty dishes, cleaning bathrooms and playing ghostbusters with the vacuum cleaner in exchange for free accommodation, food and of course at least two dives a day. The deal was fair, but the switch from VIP to ordinary class was quite hard.

Click here to get under the surface.