in the Great Barrier Reef
The first day I went snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef (also my first time snorkeling ever, with the exception of a brief jaunt in San Diego), I made an unpleasant discovery. My toes cramped every time I moved my feet.
I don’t know if you’ve ever snorkeled, but it’s basically like swimming would be if your feet had been transformed into duck feet (and your lips were on the back of your head). It turns out that moving your feet is a fairly integral part to moving about through the water.
My solution to this problem was not to move. I would just hover in one place for a long time, massaging my toes, facing downward into the water. “It’s a good thing you float well when curled into a tight ball,” B. said. “I wouldn’t have thought that would be a very floaty position.”
The great thing about the Great Barrier Reef is that, even if you are floating in one spot for a long time, and even if the visibility is very low (as it was right then, the day after a big storm), you see lots of nifty things drifting by. I watched various large, colorful fish swim near me. Then, periodically, I would swim about 2 yards before yelping, clasping my foot close to me, and once again imitating a salt-water hedgehog.
I spent that evening trying to locate bananas or other sources of potassium, so that the following day’s snorkeling experience would be less crampy. Unfortunately, it turned out that Green Island - as well as all of northern Queensland - was having a banana shortage due to flooding. I worried that the next day would be just as bad.
As it turns out, I needn’t have worried about cramps at all. Unfortunately, it also turns out that that wasn’t the worst that there was to worry about.
The next day, we took a boat out to Moore Reef, which is part of the Outer Reef, where the sights are amazing and the visibility is far better than closer in. As we got on the boat, I was excited. As we continued our journey, that feeling rapidly transformed to seasick.
It was a couple days after a large storm, and the waves were still quite choppy. I gobbled ginger tablets and ice chips to soothe my stomach. I was very relieved to reach the pontoon in Moore Reef, which was far more stable than the boat. As we got into our snorkel gear, seasickness turned back to excitement.
I got into the water, and was delighted to find that my feet didn’t cramp at all while swimming. I was also immediately captivated by the view of the reef all around me. In some spots, the seabed was 10-15 feet below us, and we could see a forest of stick-like coral. In other places, there were walls of coral - a seemingly uncountable number of types - coming up high enough to almost brush against our stomachs. And, everywhere, there were hundreds of fish of all sizes and colors.
B. suddenly grabbed my arm and started gesturing frantically. I turned, but didn’t see anything. I surfaced and took the snorkel out of my mouth.
“What?”
“Did you see it? That was the hugest fish I’ve ever seen!”
“I don’t know… I saw some pretty big fish.”
“No, you’d know what I was talking about if you’d seen it.”
We continued onward, holding hands as we snorkeled. Frequently, one of us would see something cool, squeeze the other’s hand, and point. A few times, B. got really animated and squeezed my hand excitedly, and I would turn and look and not see anything.
“You missed it again,” he would say after we surfaced.
I kept pointing out pretty big fish, and B. would nod with polite interest, but it was clear that none of them was the big fish he had seen. I became determined to see this fish.
After a while bobbing along on the waves and looking for the creature (and enjoying the many other amazing sights of the reef), I started to wonder something. Was it possible to get seasick while snorkeling? Surely not… Still, the farther we went, the more ill I felt.
Finally, I got B.’s attention and said, “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“What? Why?”
“I feel motion sick. From the waves.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Well, but you’re not actually going to get ill, right? You just feel sick. Like when you get carsick.”
“I don’t know. I want to go sit on the pontoon.”
“Maybe you should come swim around some more - it’ll distract you.”
“No, let’s sit on the pontoon a bit.”
He nodded. After a short while sitting on the pontoon, I was ready to go out again.
This time, we only swam for about 15 minutes before I started feeling bad again. “I think I’m going to be sick,” I moaned.
“Uh-huh.” He looked skeptical. “Well, just try not to think about it. Enjoy the sights.”
“What if I start puking, and I flail around and swallow a ton of seawater and I drown?”
“You’re not going to puke. Or drown, probably. Flailing does sound like you, though. Why don’t you put a life vest on, if you’re worried?”
We swam back to the pontoon once more. I leaned over the side for a while, uncertain if I could keep my breakfast down, until finally the feeling subsided.
“Are we done for the day, then?” asked B.
I thought about it. I thought about how many chances I was likely to have to go snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef. More importantly, I thought about how many chances I was going to have to see that damn fish that B. kept bragging that he’d seen. I couldn’t let B. win. “No. Let me grab a life vest, and we’ll try this again.”
We went back out again, and this time, almost immediately, I saw the hugest fish I have ever seen in my life. He was at least 5 or so feet long, brilliantly blue and orange, strangely hump-headed, and very friendly (he also turns out to be famous). He swam up to us to be pet. I grinned at B. as we touched his hard scales. B. probably thought my grin meant, “This is awesome” - and it did - but it also meant, “Ha! This time I spotted him first.”
Swimming out further, I noticed the largest sea turtle we had seen yet on our vacation. I squeezed B.’s hand and pointed triumphantly at my find. The turtle moseyed by - I’d never been sure if one could mosey under water, but he definitely proved it was possible - and we paddled after him, following him through the reef before eventually parting ways.
No sooner had he left than I made another discovery - a ray with blue polka dots and a long tail. It sat on the sea floor, a mere 10 feet away. I grabbed B.’s arm and started crazily flinging my arms in the ray’s direction. I wanted to make certain he saw it, so that he knew I was totally kicking his ass at this round of snorkeling. We watched the ray for a bit until it flapped away.
I was really happy that we had come back out into the water, and feeling pretty good in general. And then, very suddenly, I wasn’t anymore. I got B.’s attention and surfaced. Then I turned to him and opened my mouth to say, “I think I’m going to be sick.”
What came out was not words.
I projectile vomited toward B. He looked extremely alarmed and tried to swim off to the side and out of the way. Unfortunately, at this point I was concerned about drowning, having forgotten about my life vest, and I didn’t want to lose sight of him - so I turned toward him and kept spraying my fountain of puke in his direction.
To his credit, while all the other snorkelers in the area turned and swam away from me as quickly as possible, B. stayed near me despite the fact that I kept trying to face him and share the contents of my stomach with him. He helped me find an anchored float to hang onto as I retched repeatedly.
“Well,” he said, “at least the fish around here are probably happy. You’re doing a good job feeding them with your tummy chum.”
I laughed and puked again. “Can you see them?”
“No, the water’s kind of cloudy right now.”
I snorted, which was deeply unpleasant just then.
Eventually, we managed to make our way back to the pontoon. “I am glad we went back out that last time,” I said, stripping out of my wet gear.
“Yeah,” said B. “We wouldn’t have wanted to miss the turtle, or the ray, or the rainbow fish. Or your Technicolor yawn.”
I made a face at him. Then I went to take a bunch of ginger pills for the boat ride back.
I don’t know if you’ve ever snorkeled, but it’s basically like swimming would be if your feet had been transformed into duck feet (and your lips were on the back of your head). It turns out that moving your feet is a fairly integral part to moving about through the water.
My solution to this problem was not to move. I would just hover in one place for a long time, massaging my toes, facing downward into the water. “It’s a good thing you float well when curled into a tight ball,” B. said. “I wouldn’t have thought that would be a very floaty position.”
The great thing about the Great Barrier Reef is that, even if you are floating in one spot for a long time, and even if the visibility is very low (as it was right then, the day after a big storm), you see lots of nifty things drifting by. I watched various large, colorful fish swim near me. Then, periodically, I would swim about 2 yards before yelping, clasping my foot close to me, and once again imitating a salt-water hedgehog.
I spent that evening trying to locate bananas or other sources of potassium, so that the following day’s snorkeling experience would be less crampy. Unfortunately, it turned out that Green Island - as well as all of northern Queensland - was having a banana shortage due to flooding. I worried that the next day would be just as bad.
As it turns out, I needn’t have worried about cramps at all. Unfortunately, it also turns out that that wasn’t the worst that there was to worry about.
The next day, we took a boat out to Moore Reef, which is part of the Outer Reef, where the sights are amazing and the visibility is far better than closer in. As we got on the boat, I was excited. As we continued our journey, that feeling rapidly transformed to seasick.
It was a couple days after a large storm, and the waves were still quite choppy. I gobbled ginger tablets and ice chips to soothe my stomach. I was very relieved to reach the pontoon in Moore Reef, which was far more stable than the boat. As we got into our snorkel gear, seasickness turned back to excitement.
I got into the water, and was delighted to find that my feet didn’t cramp at all while swimming. I was also immediately captivated by the view of the reef all around me. In some spots, the seabed was 10-15 feet below us, and we could see a forest of stick-like coral. In other places, there were walls of coral - a seemingly uncountable number of types - coming up high enough to almost brush against our stomachs. And, everywhere, there were hundreds of fish of all sizes and colors.
B. suddenly grabbed my arm and started gesturing frantically. I turned, but didn’t see anything. I surfaced and took the snorkel out of my mouth.
“What?”
“Did you see it? That was the hugest fish I’ve ever seen!”
“I don’t know… I saw some pretty big fish.”
“No, you’d know what I was talking about if you’d seen it.”
We continued onward, holding hands as we snorkeled. Frequently, one of us would see something cool, squeeze the other’s hand, and point. A few times, B. got really animated and squeezed my hand excitedly, and I would turn and look and not see anything.
“You missed it again,” he would say after we surfaced.
I kept pointing out pretty big fish, and B. would nod with polite interest, but it was clear that none of them was the big fish he had seen. I became determined to see this fish.
After a while bobbing along on the waves and looking for the creature (and enjoying the many other amazing sights of the reef), I started to wonder something. Was it possible to get seasick while snorkeling? Surely not… Still, the farther we went, the more ill I felt.
Finally, I got B.’s attention and said, “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“What? Why?”
“I feel motion sick. From the waves.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Well, but you’re not actually going to get ill, right? You just feel sick. Like when you get carsick.”
“I don’t know. I want to go sit on the pontoon.”
“Maybe you should come swim around some more - it’ll distract you.”
“No, let’s sit on the pontoon a bit.”
He nodded. After a short while sitting on the pontoon, I was ready to go out again.
This time, we only swam for about 15 minutes before I started feeling bad again. “I think I’m going to be sick,” I moaned.
“Uh-huh.” He looked skeptical. “Well, just try not to think about it. Enjoy the sights.”
“What if I start puking, and I flail around and swallow a ton of seawater and I drown?”
“You’re not going to puke. Or drown, probably. Flailing does sound like you, though. Why don’t you put a life vest on, if you’re worried?”
We swam back to the pontoon once more. I leaned over the side for a while, uncertain if I could keep my breakfast down, until finally the feeling subsided.
“Are we done for the day, then?” asked B.
I thought about it. I thought about how many chances I was likely to have to go snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef. More importantly, I thought about how many chances I was going to have to see that damn fish that B. kept bragging that he’d seen. I couldn’t let B. win. “No. Let me grab a life vest, and we’ll try this again.”
We went back out again, and this time, almost immediately, I saw the hugest fish I have ever seen in my life. He was at least 5 or so feet long, brilliantly blue and orange, strangely hump-headed, and very friendly (he also turns out to be famous). He swam up to us to be pet. I grinned at B. as we touched his hard scales. B. probably thought my grin meant, “This is awesome” - and it did - but it also meant, “Ha! This time I spotted him first.”
Swimming out further, I noticed the largest sea turtle we had seen yet on our vacation. I squeezed B.’s hand and pointed triumphantly at my find. The turtle moseyed by - I’d never been sure if one could mosey under water, but he definitely proved it was possible - and we paddled after him, following him through the reef before eventually parting ways.
No sooner had he left than I made another discovery - a ray with blue polka dots and a long tail. It sat on the sea floor, a mere 10 feet away. I grabbed B.’s arm and started crazily flinging my arms in the ray’s direction. I wanted to make certain he saw it, so that he knew I was totally kicking his ass at this round of snorkeling. We watched the ray for a bit until it flapped away.
I was really happy that we had come back out into the water, and feeling pretty good in general. And then, very suddenly, I wasn’t anymore. I got B.’s attention and surfaced. Then I turned to him and opened my mouth to say, “I think I’m going to be sick.”
What came out was not words.
I projectile vomited toward B. He looked extremely alarmed and tried to swim off to the side and out of the way. Unfortunately, at this point I was concerned about drowning, having forgotten about my life vest, and I didn’t want to lose sight of him - so I turned toward him and kept spraying my fountain of puke in his direction.
To his credit, while all the other snorkelers in the area turned and swam away from me as quickly as possible, B. stayed near me despite the fact that I kept trying to face him and share the contents of my stomach with him. He helped me find an anchored float to hang onto as I retched repeatedly.
“Well,” he said, “at least the fish around here are probably happy. You’re doing a good job feeding them with your tummy chum.”
I laughed and puked again. “Can you see them?”
“No, the water’s kind of cloudy right now.”
I snorted, which was deeply unpleasant just then.
Eventually, we managed to make our way back to the pontoon. “I am glad we went back out that last time,” I said, stripping out of my wet gear.
“Yeah,” said B. “We wouldn’t have wanted to miss the turtle, or the ray, or the rainbow fish. Or your Technicolor yawn.”
I made a face at him. Then I went to take a bunch of ginger pills for the boat ride back.