The one question everyone asks when you come to the East Coast of Australia is… ‘Have you seen the Great Barrier Reef?’ Our answer is, yes of course! In fact, we have seen it from above and below.
Our first experience was, without a doubt, the best thing we have ever done. We decided to do our first ever skydive from the Skydive Australia base at Mission Beach, the jump was from 14,000ft, it overlooked the Great Barrier Reef and landed on Mission Beach itself. Sounded perfect. We booked the trip from Cairns, so we had a two hour bus journey to get to Mission Beach, neither of us were nervous on the way down there, just really excited. When we arrived at the base we all checked in and Vic decided to get a handcam DVD to record her experience. Typically, we were in the last group to jump, so we sat around waiting for the two other groups to come back, then listen to their stories about how amazing it was and watch their footage. A few girls cried and people were in and out of the toilets constantly, but surprisingly, we both still felt ok. Finally our names got called and it was our turn to go. We were introduced to our instructors who were jumping with us, got kitted up and ushered onto the mini bus that took us to Mission Beach airport. We were slightly concerned at how small the plane was when we jumped off the bus, but it was fine, we didn’t have time to be worried as we were on board before we knew it. We were all squashed together inside the plane, accompanied by a guy who was training to be an instructor and a guy who was training to be a skydive photographer, who kindly chose Alan to be his subject for the dive. The plane took off and we were going backwards, it wash’t long before they slid open the plastic shutter door and it was time for the trainee skydiver to jump out, he was sweating and freaking out a little bit as he was doing a very low jump from 4,000ft. Off he went, followed by a guy monitoring him, then it was time for our climb up to 14,000ft. It got to a point where Vic thought we were near our height and she asked the instructor, only to be told we had just reached 8,000ft, just over halfway. It was VERY high! Vic was the first person in our group to jump, so once we got a bit higher, her and the instructor eased themselves forward into position, right next to the door. The views were absolutely incredible and the Great Barrier Reef looked beautiful, the water was a dark turquoise and there wasn’t even a cloud in the sky. FInally, it was time to go. All strapped up, Vic was told that, when the door was opened, they were going to lean out and look to see if they were in the correct position, then come back inside the plane and turn round so Vic’s legs were dangling off the edge. With not a nerve in sight, Vic did as she was told, gave a thumbs up to the handcam and was ready to go. Holding her head back, the instructor pushed them both out of the plane and they began the 60 second free fall. No words can describe the feeling that you get, it is a pure adrenaline rush, but before you know it, the parachute has been pulled and you are floating mid air taking in the views.Vic had a green and yellow parachute and had a go at steering, before landing safely on the beach. Alan was third out of the plane, after being told he was going to jump on 3, the instructor counted to 1, and took the leap out of the door before he even got to 2. After starting his free fall doing somersaults, he got over the initial shock and was amazed by the awesome views. His blue and yellow parachute went up and he also had a go at steering, descending to the beach in spirals, before touching down safely and being reunited with Vic. Immediately, we just wanted to do it again, but unfortunately for us it was far too expensive, so it was back to Cairns for us. We bought Alan’s photographs, picked up Vic’s DVD and headed home ready for our scuba dive the next day.
Another early morning was upon us, we boarded Tusa 6 at the Cairns marina and signed up for the 3 guided scuba dives taking place throughout the day. We set sail for Saxon Reef and the ocean looked no where near as appealing as it had the day before, because it was very choppy and the weather was so dull. It took about 2 hours to get to our first dive site as the skipper wanted to try and reach some better conditions, but it didn’t work. We all got provided with stinger suits (box jellyfish are in season from October to May) and got issued our diving equipment. Vic was a little bit nervous that she had forgotten how to dive because it had been 5 months since our last one, but it’s just like riding a bike, you never forget. Being certified divers, we were first off the boat and began our first fun dive of the day at Twin Peaks. When we got down to 15m we went in search of some unusual fish and coral, but the visibility was only about 10m and there wasn’t an awful lot to be seen. We did see a few Nemo’s and some angel fish, but nothing exciting. After our 35min dive we had a 20min break and went back down to Twin Peaks for another go. This time it was much better, the visibility was the same, but after about 15minutes, Alan spotted a huge turtle, it was really playful and came right up close to us, we managed to get some good photographs with our underwater camera. We surfaced and had about an hour’s break for lunch, while moving to Hastings Reef for our final dive of the day. We got our gear back on for the last time and dove down to the Fishbowl, our new dive site. The weather hadn’t changed but the visibility was a bit better here. We found a massive black sea caterpillar when we first got down there, the guide picked it up and gave it to Vic, it felt like velvet and was really soft. We seen some cool fish but nothing we hadn’t seen before, so we just played around with the underwater camera for a while and got some pics of ourselves. We got out of our wet clothes, filled in our dive logs and set off back to Cairns.
Our scuba dives would have been much better if the weather was on our side, but unfortunately it wasn’t, we still had a great day, but, from our two different dive experiences (sky and scuba), we would definitely chose to jump out of that plane again tomorrow!!
We nearly there yet? 