Day 4: Spearfishing

Somewhere in the Great Barrier Reef – 9 January 2011 at 6:13pm
Kansas City, USA – January 9, 2011 at 2:13am

Today has been another fantastic day. We woke up, ate some breakfast, pulled anchor and headed North by 9am.

Paul and I fished off the back of the boat…no luck again. I really, really want to catch a fish!

We stopped after a few hours at the Fitzroy Reef (basically the middle of nowhere) to go for a snorkel and the guys were going to try to spear us a fish for lunch. We all changed into our swimsuits, lowered the tender and found a great place to get in the water to see some more marine life. Right as I was getting in the water, I’m basically half in half out and at the point of no return, Ross yells shark…oh goodie…another shark. These sharks are making me a little uneasy.

As I’ve been told, remain calm and keep your heart rate down (because they can sense the vibrations of your heartbeat). As I look under the water I see him right below us. I start practicing the yoga breathing (obviously through my mouth and not my nose...I can't afford to drown at this point!) I’ve learned over the years to keep a steady & regular heartbeat and try to keep an eye on him as we swim.

Ross has a great idea for us to see a little more of the reef in a short amount of time. He gets back in the boat and throws out two ski ropes for us to pull behind...otherwise known as manta towing. Katie and I grab one and Paul grabs the other. Basically what you do is lay on the surface of the water, face in and snorkel out while the boat pulls you along. So far this has been my favorite was to see the reef…it adds a little sporting element as well as covering a large area of the reef. As always the views are amazing. We see sea turtles and manta rays, heaps of different types of fish…Katie is pointing things out to me as we go along and when the boat stops she explains what we passed by.

After trolling around the reef, Ross gets back in the water with the spear gun and Katie drives the boat. All this time, the shark has been following us. Not because he wants to eat us, but as they said, there is really nothing else going on down there at the moment....again, I'm skeptic. So, the plan is for me to stay up the current from Ross and Paul (who both have spear guns) in case they get a fish because the shark will go for them and leave me alone...I hope. Once we (meaning they) spear the fish, Katie will drive up and we all get in the boat (again, hopefully quicker than the shark can get us). Sure, okay, sounds like a plan…they know this stuff better than me…but if I lose a leg or an arm in the process, I’m not going to be very happy about it.

Unfortunately, no fish…but no shark bites either so I still consider this a successful day! I really did want to see them spear a fish but at the same time I'm somewhat glad they didn't as I wasn't really confident that I could carry out my part of the plan...i.e. getting in the boat faster than the shark!

We headed back to the Aroona to eat some lunch and hangout on the boat. The plan is to leave in the afternoon and drive to the next set of islands so we can arrive by 11pm to stay on course…again, sounds like a great plan. So we all eat lunch, Ross fires up the boat, Paul throws some fishing lines in the water and Katie and I are reading our books (yes, I’ve finally got my sea legs…so much so that I can read a book on the moving boat without taking a motion sickness tablet and not vomit…success!)

I sat out on the back deck reading for a couple of hours. I happened to looked up to see dolphins swimming next to the boat. They are beautiful creatures…they were diving in and out of the wake…absolutely breathtaking. I'm again reminded how lucky I am to be witnessing all of this!

The rocking of the boat was making me sleepy so I decided to go into my cabin to take a nap before dinner and write this blog post…

Update the next morning:

Ummm, well, I guess I was really tired because I woke up the next morning at 7am. Apparently 13 hours of sleep is exactly what I needed. 

I slept through dinner and the trip to the next destination...The Great Keppel Islands

I remember my mom telling a story about me when I was a kid. Two times when I was under the age of 5, I slept for 24 hours straight so they took me to the doctor and he said, “She’s just really tired, so let her sleep.” I think that has always been my problem…I NEVER want to miss out on anything in life, so I just go nonstop until I’m so tired I crash…I guess that explains why I had mono for three months and didn’t know it until one day I just collapsed.

Additional Photos: Day 4

Numbers at Random:

# of sharks: 3

# of sharks swimming with us for miles waiting for us to spear a fish: 1

# of dolphins: 5

# of manta ray: heaps

# of sea turtles: 2

# of eel: 1

# of consecutive hours slept: 13