Great Barrier Reef

01.08.2024:

My sleep duration was not very long, as I was at the hostel bar with my roommates downstairs until 3:00 AM. But since Michael and I booked a day trip to the Great Barrier Reef yesterday and the ship departed from the harbor at 8:30 AM, the alarm clock rang shortly after 7. Upon arriving at the ship, we were welcomed with a coffee and set off swiftly. Until today, I had never had any issues with dizziness/nausea on a ship, but after about half an hour, I really started to feel sick. The journey lasted 2 hours, so I laid my head on the table and closed my eyes, until suddenly the captain made an announcement, that humpback whales were swimming next to us. I jumped up, ran to the deck, and saw them jumping out of the water and swimming alongside us. A little later when we finally dropped anchor, it got much better with the nausea, as the water was calmer there. A few meters away, there was a small island that was completely full of birds. There we changed and went snorkeling first. After snorkeling, we had lunch on the ship and then the dive began. Both the snorkeling and the diving were truly overwhelming. I had never seen the underwater world so vividly before. While snorkeling, there were mostly smaller fish in every color. While diving, there were suddenly 1.5 meter fish, turtles, "smaller" sharks, rays, etc. When we dove under the ship, there were huge schools of fish there, and later we were told that the fish love to swim under boats. During the dive, we were accompanied by an underwater photographer who took pictures of the animals we saw. Shortly after we were back on the boat, the return journey began, and there I also started to feel very sick again after a few minutes, which is why I took the same position as on the way there. Arriving at the hostel, I checked into the room for this night. It is a 6-bed room, and the new roommates are really messy. Luckily, I am only staying here for one night.