Day 2. And the hex upon us continues. To swim in the great barrier reef, you have to charter a boat that takes you an hour's boat ride from the shores of cairns. There are a handful of charter boats to choose from and while doing my research, i basically went with what i felt was the cheapest. I booked our group with Down Under Dive and it ended up being pretty good and sufficient for my needs. Except that the lunch served on board was HORRIBLE. Blah. I do want to add that this was mos def the hardest trip i've ever had to plan. I was extremely busy with work and the new biz that i didn't have a whole lot of time to really get into the knitty gritty details of sorting out things to do for 4.5 whole cities. The .5 being our eight hour layover in the unparadise city of nadi, fiji. Bula! That's hello in fijian. And the aussies call their docks/piers fingers. So weird! The entire crew were extremely friendly. I really liked them. And they all seem to work really hard. Aside from that, if there was one thing in my oceana trip that i would want to do over, it would be this whole great barrier reef thing. I truly feel like i didn't get everything i wanted out of it. I'm going to list three things that made this excursion not the most ideal one.
One: I vomited. Twice. I have never EVER EVER experienced any type of sea sickness. Ever. But as i was sitting through the scuba lesson, a feeling of nausea was developing in my insides and it was growing stronger by the minute. I tried to mind over matter it by closing my eyes and taking deep breaths. Bad idea. We were sitting in a small room inside the boat and it was hot and musty in there. My stomach started to turn. I remember people who have motion sickness would stare outside windows and so with no other plan, i tried staring out at the waters and focusing on one spot. Ugh. Even worse! It was winter time and even though cairns stays pretty tropical year round, the waters were still really choppy. At the speed the boat was going, the strong choppy waters was cresting the boat at 45 degrees left and right. Even as i knew the sausage mcmuffin i had that morning was about to make its escape, i fought really hard up until the last moment to keep it down. To hold it in. I fought so hard that i was unknowingly creating this pressure system inside me. And finally, i threw up in my mouth. The scuba instructor was in the middle of his lecture when i threw my arms in the air and pointed at my chipmunk face full of throw up. He quickly yells for me to run outside. I run outside and head for the side of the boat and am about to release it all when another crew member yells NOOOO! They don't allow any type of pollutants in the water unlike galveston where they encourage you to vomit in the water if need be. So a crew member tries to find me a throw up bag and by this time, my eyes are popping out of its socket. So much pressure. Just building and building. Someone finally thrusts a bag in my hand and everything comes shooting out. I get maybe 25% in the bag and the rest is all over the floor with possibly some splatters of it on my feet. Then i hear my middle sistar going OMG Mary! Great. Perfect timing. The scuba class is getting let out and as i'm standing there frozen in an awkward position trying to not make my vomit mess worse, people are filing out of the room going ew and giving me looks of pity. This really sucks. It really SUCKED! SO BAD! And to make matters worse, the boat had reached it's destination. This poor but abnormally upbeat crew member had to clean up my vomit. I offered to do it but he shooed me away. Once the boat had stopped, i felt a lot better, but was still feeling a little out of it. As horny young adult backpackers from all over the world began jumping into the water for this experience of a life time, i found myself kind of lingering on the side not completely sure i wanted to go in. I'm normally a really confident swimmer and can tread water endlessly but with the water being so cold and choppy, i felt a bit nervous. I finally went in but i used a noodle. A NOODLE! I never swim with noodles or life preservers. Plus i just finished training for my first sprint tri so i should have been in good swimming shape. Oh how i hate you sea sickness! I hate getting old. Crazy shizz starts happening to your body. I find it difficult swimming with those things. I flapped around for a bit but i kept worrying that i was going to miss my turn for scuba so i went back up onto the boat.
Two: When it came to the scuba, i did fairly well. Getting used to breathing pure oxygen is really hard. You're going through the breathing motions but it doesn't feel like a satisfied breath and you start feeling like you're suffocating because all you want is the regular atmospheric air that we're used to. The rule in oz is that first time intro scuba divers must go down with arms linked with an instructor. When they first suited me up. I literally could not get up. Those tanks are HEAVY. Someone had to push me into the water cos i couldn't get up. The instructor for my group had us all submerge and we had to be okay with the breathing before he would bring us down any further. Once again, i found myself trying to zen out and focus on the breathing. There were many times where i wanted to come back up but i wouldn't let myself. I can only be weak once! So i focused on a spot in front of me and breathed in and out slowly. I had to repeat to myself that i was getting air and that i was dying and that i would be fine. I zenned out. Ommm. I showed the instructor that i could clear water out of my mask and blew hard out through the regulator. Mean while, my middle sistar was having a really hard time with the breathing. She kept going up and down and up and down. Freaking out a bit i guess. And she was making it hard for me to zen out since she was right next to me. At one point i just wanted to grab her foot and pull her back down and force her to stay down but i didn't cos the feeling of drowning is such a scary thing. Next thing i knew, they were making her get out and the instructor took me and this girl down to the bottom to scuba around. It was pretty cool. I can definitely see why people are so fascinated with the activity. The reef was nice, but not amazing. Luckily for my sister, they were going to give her another chance at the scuba when we went to the second spot to swim. She was finally able to do it then which i'm glad! Unfortunately, mochi wasn't able to partake in scuba at all because of these black outs that she sometimes has. We debated whether or not to be upfront about it but because she would be under water and the fact that she doesn't know exactly what causes it made me really worry. So it really sucks that she wasn't able to give it a try but hey, safety first.
Three: Everyone had lunch as the boat made it's way to location number two. I tried to eat quickly so that i could head back outside. The food was gross. It made me feel more nauseous and i felt better sitting outside with the fresh, cold air. It made me feel less like vomiting. Once again, right when we almost docked, I threw up. AGAIN! Ugh i hate my body! I remember going inside and telling the staff that i better not be pregnant! Haha. They had a good laugh. And then i kept thinking what if it WERE the case?!? Just in case, i didn't have a drop of liquor the entire trip. Haha. Plus, i really couldn't afford to drink it up anyhow. After middle sistar did her scuba thang, we all went snorkeling in the strong currents of the south pacific ocean. Everything was fine and dandy until we realized the currents were taking us outside of the perimeter of the designated swimming area. So i started swimming fast and furious and when i stopped, my heart sank. The digital camera that i had rented was no longer hanging on my arm. I tried to quickly dive under and look for it but in the end. It was gone. I paid AUD50 to rent it. Now i owed AUD500 for losing it. Great. Could this trip get any worse? The girl in charge of camera rentals told me i had been her favorite person on the boat so she felt really bad about what happened. I was so sad about the money and was feeling so down the ride back to cairns. I was sitting outside, my head in my arms against the railing. The crew member on lookout was trying to cheer me up and suggested i don't eat mcdonalds anymore before going on a boat ride in the future. I kept thinking that all these people must have felt so bad for me. I was the only one that got sea sick and the only one paying for a lost underwater digital camera. Oh that poor asian girl with good english. And everyone would come to remember me as such. I kept praying that someone else would hurry and throw up too so that i wasn't singled out. But no such luck. Thinking back. Maybe me losing the digi cam was a sign from above that i should never have bad thoughts. When i first got the rental camera, i told middle sistar and mochi that i liked it so much that i might just pay the AUD500 and say i lost it. Lesson learned.
