By David Cohen

As an avid scuba diver, I had long been dreaming of visiting the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Last April, I finally had the chance to fulfill my dream as part of a three-week trip to Australia. Because Australia is so vast and there are so many things to do, I had to find a way to get in as much diving as possible in a short time. The best way to do this is by choosing a live-aboard dive boat. Live-aboard dive boats usually carry 10-20 passengers for three to seven day trips and allow up to five dives a day. At a typical resort, two dives a day is the norm. So, after convincing my wife that this would be the best dive experience we'd ever have, I signed us up for a three-day trip along the Great Barrier Reef with Mike Ball Dive Expeditions, one of the best live-aboard dive operations in the world. Our journey started with an overnight in the tropical city of Cairns in the state of Queensland. Cairns is primarily a tourist hub that is the jump off point to the Great Barrier Reef and several other tourist destinations in Northwest Queensland. Our three-day odyssey began with a 6:00 a.m. wake up call at our hotel. I should point out that our only fear of the live-aboard dive boat was seasickness, which had reared its ugly head a couple times in our previous dive trips. So, as I looked out the window of the hotel towards the falling rain, I kept telling myself that it was just a passing shower. After signing in at breakfast, we boarded a few minivans to head to the airport. The itinerary for the dive trip was to fly to Lizard Island, board the boat and take a three-day trip ending back in Cairns. My excitement to get started was tempered when a Mike Ball employee began handing out seasickness pills at the airport. "It's a little rough out there today, but it should subside," is what we heard. The 20 of us boarded three small airplanes, and I do mean small for the hour flight to Lizard Island. We were hoping for clearing skies, because we heard that the low level flight provided a spectacular view of the reef from above. No such luck as we spent the next hour figuring out if we could survive a crash at sea as the plane did its best imitation of a yo-yo. We survived the plane ride and landed on Lizard Island where we met the group of divers who had just finished their trip. "How are the seas?" I asked. A friendly woman eagerly responded, "The diving was great, everyone puked." I popped a couple more seasickness pills. We took a small launch out the boat, which was moored a few hundred yards off shore. It was a nice 100-foot boat and the rooms were basic but comfortable. We got underway quickly as we had at least three dives planned that day. As soon as we cleared the protection of Lizard Island, the eight-foot swells began to take their toll. About half of the passengers were feeding the fish within an hour. Luckily my wife and I were holding our own with the aid of the pills. My wife just kept looking at me with that "you will never be able to pay off this one" expression on her face as we headed a 100 miles out to sea. We got the first dive site shortly after noon and geared up to go in. It was pouring and the waves were 5-6 feet. On the positive side, diving is one activity you can do in the rain. The trick is to get in and below the surge of the waves quickly. As soon as I jumped in, I didn't care about anything else except enjoying the dive. I occasionally looked to the side to make sure a shark hadn't carted my wife off as I swam on. Visibility wasn't so great, but the fish life was fantastic and the coral was in great shape. I swam over a little ridge and there was 12-foot shark lying in the sand about six feet below me. I was so excited and instantly regretted leaving my camera on the boat for the first dive. I love seeing sharks while diving as long as they are not Great Whites. My yardstick is if the shark can swallow me whole (Great Whites can) then I'll pass on that dive spot. No worries here, though, only smaller sharks. We saw a few more sharks on the dive and surfaced in time for lunch. While I was maintaining my continence up to this point, I kept to bread and rice at lunch, hoping the weather would get better soon. It didn't. Over the course of the next three days, it rained and stormed continuously, but we managed to get in 11 dives and saw plenty of sharks, giant cod, eels, hundreds of species of fish and beautiful coral formations. While visibility was greatly reduced, just about everybody agreed that this was the best diving they had ever done. Many suffered from seasickness, but my wife and I escaped intact due in no small part to the pills we took. Bottom line, nor rain, nor wind nor monsoon kept us from enjoying great diving and Mike Ball knows what it's doing. The personnel on the boat were friendly, knowledgeable, helpful and ensured that everyone had a great time.

Date Entered: 1/13/2000