The weekend started out promising, I left work about 11:30 and made my way to the train station to meet up with Leah. I had packed my backpack and taken it to work so I didn't have to waste any precious time going home. We met up at noon and grabbed the train to Cleveland, about an hour train ride south from Brissie. Once we made Cleveland we hopped the ferry over to North Stradbroke Island. Straddie as the locals call it is one of the so called sand islands along Queensland's coast. The ferry ride was about 30 mins and in that time it started to rain, and it rained a lot.
We had to grab a bus from the ferry landing over to the other side of the Island where we had reserved a campsite. The campground was just across the road from the dive centre and right on the beach. Our camping spot was less than a hundred metres from the ocean. It was fantastic. By the time we set up our tent it was really looking ominous and we walked up the beach for an hour or two and got some dinner at a fish and chips shop a few kilometers from our camp. By the time we were done eating the rain started so we popped into a hotel bar and grabbed a jug of beer and sat on the veranda for a while drinking.
We walked back in the rain to our camp and the skies actually cleared for a while. By this time it was dark but the moon was shining brightly so we took our towels out on to the beach and read for a while. I managed to fall asleep on the beach and we got into our tent about 9:30.
Sometime in the middle of the night it started to rain again. I don't actually mind when it rains at night while we're in the tent. Our tent is nice and water proof and the sound is quite soothing to me. I slept like a rock. I didn't open my eyes until 5:30.
When we crawled out of the tent the skies didn't look very promising, but we were scheduled to dive at 7:15 so we were in good spirits. We had coffee and an apple for breakfast and walked over to the dive centre. The dive centre on Straddie is much smaller than the one in Byron Bay but I found it to be comparable in professionalism. Checking in and gearing up were smooth and we were given a briefing about what to expect and what was expected from us. While that was happening the skies opened up again and it started to downpour.
The boat launch was a bit of an adventure, the tide was in, the surf was rough and I don't think the guy towing the boat to the beach was very experienced because it took a couple of goes before we were headed out to the dive site. The ride out was rough as. The swell was about three metres and just about everyone on the boat was looking green pretty quickly. The winds were up and we were all being pummeled with spray as we mad the 3 or 4 k out to the site. When we finally dropped anchor half the people on the boat were puking.
Even Leah who is a confirmed non-seasicker was looking pretty rough. I felt pretty crook (love that term) but managed to keep from puking. Even one of our guides had too much and was leaning over the side of the boat feeding the fish. It was a barf-a-rama.
Our dive site was the Turtle Caves area of flat rock. Click this link to read more about it.
We geared up with the boat bobbing and it was a little nerve wracking but we got it done. Once we were geared up we did a back entry over the side and started down. What a difference under the boat! Once we were under all sea sickness slipped right away and everything was peaceful. I was shocked that the visibility was as good as it was. We could see about 10-15 metres. We made our way down the anchor line and almost immediately we saw an enormous shark. Leah's eyes almost popped out of her head. It was a grey nurse shark and not interested in us at all but it was really cool. The guide told us later it was a female and most certainly pregnant. Grey nurse sharks are really rare to see around here this time of year and our guides were super excited that she was there. The picture on the flat rock page from before is a grey nurse. We saw her make several laps of the area and was never more than a few metres away the whole time we were down. After that we saw tons and tons of other fish. Our guide motioned us over to a rock over hang and signaled for us to take a look under it. There was a big hawk billed sea turtle under there and he swam out and right past us. I swam right along with him for about ten metres and I could tell he was checking me out just as much as I was checking him out. That for me was the highlight.
We had our deepest dive to date on this one. We bottomed out at 24.9 metres. (thats 81.5 feet) It's thrilling to be that deep and scary in a good way. We're not allowed to go any deeper without more certification. I'll be working on that, but Leah is a little more hesitant.
We had about thirty minutes of bottom time and when our air was 3/4 gone we headed for the top. Getting in the boat is pretty easy. You hand your weighs over to the guide on the boat and get out of your vest and fins and climb right it. It is so easy to gloat on the surface wearing a wet suit. Your buoyant in the salt water anyway but add a 5mm wet suit and you almost cant sink. The water was warm and felt great. We were surprised to find out it had started pissing rain again and it rained hard for ten minutes after we got into the boat. We had about an hour of time between dives and they provided us with some gummi worms and soup. It sounds weird but a little sugar in your stomach when you're feeling sea sick really makes a difference. We both passed on the soup though.
Our next dive was a couple of kilometres closer to the island at an area called Shag Rock. It wasn't as deep but the water was a little less rough. We got in and spent nearly 40 minutes bottom time and saw a bunch of Wobbegong sharks and a really cool Leopard Shark.
Once we were done we headed back to the dive centre and were done by noon. We had our dive logs signed off and stamped and we made our way to lunch. We hit up this sort of questionable looking servo (petrol station) that was recommended for their great burgers. Sure enough the burgers were out of control. We were both ravenous. I had the "Straddie" burger and it was a masterpiece. It had a pineapple ring, cheese, bacon, a fried egg, beetroot lettuce tomato onion and bbq sauce. Seriously good.
After that we spent the day walking, we wanted to go a couple of miles and check out some of the headlands rocks that we had heard about, but it wouldn't stop raining and eventually it was a major downpour and really not fun anymore. We stopped at a bottle-o (liquor store, god I love the Aussie language) and got a six pack of bourbon and ginger ale pre mixed in cans. I didn't know these existed before this weekend and I might have a new favorite.
We went back to the campsite still soaked and got ourselves a hot shower. Then we sat under a pavilion and made dinner. It rained hard as for a while and we read to each other to stay entertained. We hit the sack about nine pm again and hoped that the clouds would part in the morning. Aside from the scuba we hadn't even gotten in the ocean.
We both slept like stones and woke up to a sunny day for the first time. We made a cup of coffee and were deciding which beach to go to when the surf patrol came running up to us and told us there was a tsunami warning and they were closing all the beaches. He said we had better get out quickly as where we were camped would surely be swept away if it hit. Needless to say we got our shit together and were packed up as quick as. I think we set some kind of record.
So we got an early ferry and made our way back to Brisbane and were home right about noon. A pretty busy weekend cut short, thankfully it wasn't tragic.
One more thing. With all the rain we didn't make any videos or take many pictures at all. In fact I think I only took five pictures total all weekend. Here's the best one looking out over Cylinder Beach.
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