Piglet's Potter

For the first 24 hours off the ship, I found myself swaying involuntarily, plagued by sudden head rushes whenever I lent over to reach for something. It's land sickness: my body having become used to the rolling sea was now unaccustomed to the stability of land. I've had this uneasy feeling before, but not for a long time - not since I last came home after a season on the tuna long lining boats, where I worked as a deckhand. Or maybe I just missed being out in the deep blue. Either way, I was happy out on the Great Barrier Reef. I can see how so many, well intentioned travelers have become locals. Prospective university students and suit wearing professionals now crew of mega yachts, bar staff or travel agents. If I was going to drop off the grid, the Whitsundays would be an easy place to do it in.

The chronology of our three days and three nights on the Ananconda III is that we set sail at 7pm on Tuesday night and anchored off Whitehaven Beach that night. The next morning was spent pottering around Whitehaven Beach, above or below water then to Hayman Island for lunch, snorkeling and sunbathing. Early the next morning, we sailed the 16 nautical miles to Bait Reef and spent a long day discovering why its called the "Great" Barrier Reef, before coming back to Blue Pearl Bay to anchor for the night. More diving and snorkeling around Blue Pearl Bay in the morning and back to Abel Point Marina late Friday afternoon.

My memory of the experience does not fall into neatly segmented pieces of time. When I think of our trip around the Whitsundays and under the Great Barrier Reef, I get flash card images where there is a lot of blue, every imaginable shade of blue, there is laughing with passengers and crew and hysterical drinking games, there is an entire day and night of food poisoning, fitful sweaty sleep and hot sweet tea, there are Humpback whales breaching the waves along side us, there is sand between my toes that looks and feels exactly like high grade white flour, there's buddy checks of diving equipment, delicious chatter-filled and carbohydrate-packed lunches, the animalistic grooming ritual of applying sunscreen and the tight raw patches of skin, punishment for not reapplying often enough.

And then there is the kaleidescope of moving colour underwater, there are tiny darting things in swaying strands of anemones, the rasping sound of huge technicolour fish grazing amongst the coral, there is surprise and awe at seeing sharks, turtles and massive jelly fish, my safety stops where I am being pulled along by a deep current older and stronger than anything I've felt before, holding my breath to keep the bubbles from my regulator from drowning out the whale song, the unbelievable peace and quiet of being deep below the crashing surface of the ocean, the thrill of a night dive, big cuttlefish eyes glinting in the fuzzy torch light and an endless ocean of dark around our little artificial halos, the spectacular night sky, a shared can of Woodstock and Coke and an adrenalin fueled sense of achievement, our reward for braving the inky darkness.

That was my experience and I would do it again in a heart beat.