Town of 1770 and the Great Barrier Reef -- Sarah and Naomi's forum of coolness

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Date Posted: 23:13:56 06/30/03 Mon
Author: Nomi and Sarah
Subject: Town of 1770 and the Great Barrier Reef

We left Bundaberg on Friday (finally!) and came out to the town of 1770. It's so beautiful here! It's the east coast's most northerly surf beach, as well as the beginning of the Great Barrier Reef.

Our hostel is cool. They picked us up for free from Bundy (saving us quite a bit of money because we didn't have to take the bus). Last night we had a FREE "bbq and facials" night, which meant we all sat around eating meat (or pseudo-meat) with mud masks on! It was good fun :)

When we first got here we signed up to go on a cruise to Lady Musgrave Island on the GBR (great barrier reef) on Sunday. The cruise was supposed to leave at 8 am, returning at 5:30 pm. It was supposed to take 1.5 hours to get to the island, and the rest of the day is spent snorkelling, exploring the island, riding the glass bottom boat, and eating at the buffet. Unfortunately, this didn't work out exactly as planned.

We got on the boat at 8 am, and by 10 am, we were starting to wonder why we weren't there yet. It was pretty bumpy out on the ocean, and a lot of people were getting sick (though luckily not us). The captain then came down and told us that there had been a slight change of plan. Over the night, the glass bottom boat which is moored at Lady Musgrave Island had somehow come loose, floated over the edge of the coral lagoon without crashing, and floated off into the open ocean. Our mission was now to go after it, and rescue it. The glass bottom boat is used to take people from the big boat to the island, so it's impossible to operate the tours without it.

Around 11 am we found the boat floating out near a completely different island (Lady Elliot Island- normally you can only get there by plane, but we got to see it... from the boat anyways). It was hard to get close enough to the glass bottom boat to get somebody on, because the ocean was so choppy. Eventually once we got sort of near, one of the crew members took a crazy dive towards it, landing in the ocean, but he managed to grab on to it with one hand so he could pull himself up.

Once the crew member was on board the glass bottom boat, the next hour and a half or so were spent trying to tie the little boat behind the big one, so that we could tow it back to Lady Musgrave Island. Once it was tied securely, they had to anchor it behind Lady Elliot Island for a while so that 4 guys could turn the glass upside-down so that it didn't smash while getting pulled across the open ocean. We took this opportunity to eat the lunch buffet ;) (incidently, the crew felt so bad about what was happening that they gave us free reign over the snack bar... chips, chocolate bars, pop, all free! Yummy!) Unfortunately most people just ended up throwing all their food up anyways...

Once the boat was tied to us and the glass flipped over, we proceeded to tug it behind us to Lady Musgrave Island. This took us FOUR and a half hours!! Usually the boat travels at 25 knots, but we had to go at 4 because we were towing the glass bottom boat... it was soooooooo slow, and because we were going so slow it made the trip extremely bumpy. People were getting sick the entire time.

Once we got to Lady Musgrave Island the sun was already setting. The crew had to try and untie the glass bottom boat and navigate it through the small opening between the reef so that they could harbour it beside the island. There were some people on board who were supposed to be dropped off at the island to go camping, but at this point it was decided that it was too dangerous for anybody to land on the island.

In the process of untying the glass bottom boat, one of the ropes snapped and got caught in the propeller of the big boat, which meant that we only had one engine. They tried to drop the anchor, but it kept dragging... this meant that we were floating in the dark, with only one engine... the captain was having a hard time keeping the boat from floating into the reef, it was pretty scary. The crew members were all pretty stressed out, and the kids got all dressed up in their lifejackets.

Luckily there was a scuba diver on the crew, so he had to jump in the freezing cold water in the pitch dark and try to untangle the rope from the propellor. The boat was shifting and rolling around, it kept looking like it was going to land on his head! He had to try and untie the rope from the propeller while keeping himself afloat and holding a big flashlight in one hand. Whenever he was underwater for a couple minutes everybody got pretty nervous wondering if he was ok. After a while he came up and took a bread knife down with him, to try and cut the rope off. It took a long time, but eventually he cleared the rope so that we could use both engines, and keep away from the reef.

While this was happening two of the other crew members drove the glass bottom boat back to its anchor point, and then returned to the big vessel (on the zodiac).

We then drove home in the dark, returning to the dock at 8:30 pm, after 12.5 crazy hours on the boat. What a day!!

The next day we went on the cruise again (though we really didn't want to get back on the boat!) and the day went wonderfully. It was absolutely perfect out, and the snorkelling was great. We saw so many beautiful fish and different types of coral, and a big giant fish hiding in a cave! (We never figured out what it was, but it might have been a gummy shark). Obviously the cruise company paid for us to go for free on the second day (and they gave us free wetsuit hire, as well as a free postcard!)

It all worked out ok in the end. We had a day of crazy scary adventure, and a day of lovely snorkelling, and two buffet lunches for the price of one!

Tonight we are heading back to Bundaberg, and then we'll be heading down South. We might or might not be stopping at Fraser Island, we're not sure right now.... we think we may have had enough of boats and beaches ;)

That's it for now! Hope you're all doing well (how was Lerato's wedding??)

Love Love!

Nomi and Sarah

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Replies:

Re: Town of 1770 and the Great Barrier Reef -- Mom, 07:14:46 07/03/03 Thu