The Cosmos Adventure - News
Report From Hilary Peabody -- Received June 1, 2002 CosmosI joined Cosmos May 5 in MacKay. Here’s an accounting of a few recent days which reflect what life aboard Cosmos has been like for me.
5/18/02
lat 15 30
long 145 46
Cairns to Steve’s Bommie (Ribbon Reef Number 3)
**This reef was recommended to us by Paddy Colwell who was our instructor at the fabulous “Reef Teach” based in Cairns. Check out their web site at: www.reefteach.com.au
Left Cairns around 1:30 yesterday; sailed through the night and arrived at site around 9 this morning. Calm sea, clear sky, reef stretched ribbon like north to south of our mooring; no other boats in sight – we have this paradise to ourselves! All went snorkeling immediately.
At Steve’s Bommie we find stunning visibility. The water is clear. There have been no recent storms and a constant flow of water from the east which flushes the area. The variety of coral, fish, and marine life we can see is astounding. Here is a partial list of what we saw while at Steve’s Bommie:
Longfin Bannerfish
Green Moon Wrasse
Parrot Fish
Chocolate Dip Damsels
Sergeant Majors
Teardrop Butterfly
Redlip Parrotfish
Bicolor Parrotfish
Batfish
Many Spotted Sweetlip
Yellow Tailed Fusilier
Titan Triggerfish
King Mackerel
Black and White Snapper
Squirrel Fish
Potato Cod
Clown Trigger Fish
Long Snouted Butterfly
Spinecheek Anemonefish
Longfinned Gobys
Flame Angelfish
Napoleon Wrasse
Sweetlip Emperors
Pineapple Sea Cucumber
Giant Clam
Brain Coral
Plate & Table Corals
Fire Coral
Slipper Coral
Mushroom Coral
Lunar Coral
Knobby Coral
Honeycomb Coral
Mosaic Coral
Staghorn Coral
Needle Coral
Sunloving Mushroom Coral
This list can’t do the reef justice -- there are many things we saw that we didn’t identify or forgot in the flush of excitement. It also doesn’t capture the sheer density - schools of fish and corals of different types all growing together. These are rich, wild underwater gardens; it’s like swimming up to a really great party in full swing. When we get out of the water we’re high and excited; we start waving around identification cards and trading news of sightings. The thrill lasts for hours/days.
Late afternoon/ Steve’s Bommie 5/18/02
I decide to give the Super Snorkel a try.
I am a little nervous. My first tries with snorkeling – just a few days ago -- were clumsy. When I hauled myself back into the Cosmos cockpit the first day, I quietly wondered if I wasn’t really better suited for an afternoon of shopping, perhaps followed by a latte in a café somewhere. “I should be somewhere having a nice chat about the environmental perils facing the reef,” I thought, “over a fresh piece of pie.” That gorgeous day we were moored at Manta Ray Bay. I proudly donned my new snorkeling togs and gamely climbed in the water. I try to adjust my mask and find myself struggling to stay afloat. I can’t tread water properly and breathing through my snorkel is a lost cause. This is not happening. I swallow a good litre of Coral Sea water. Who’s idea of fun is this? I take my mask off and look around. All my crew-mates swim nearby, oddly at ease like so many sea gods and goddesses shouting and beckoning “Sea turtle!” -- “Moray Eel.” A small swell breaks my concentration. I thrash around. I think, “Everyone knows snorkeling is really easy. How hard can it be to breathe through a big straw and look through a piece of expensive glass?”
It took me a good number of tries over the course of two days before I could snorkel without having a massive anxiety attack before hand. So slow was I to get in the water each day that my puzzled crew-mates tried to calm what they perceived as my fear of sharks. “They’re not interested in you…you’d actually be lucky to see a shark….” I widen my eyes and nod as if taking this information in for the first time. Their attempts to reassure me are touching. What those gods & goddesses of the Coral Sea don’t know is that I’ve read about sharks. Sharks are the sexy hoodlums of the sea; no more likely to be interested in me than the pierced bad boys of some east village band that’s about to get signed. I look over the glowing, earnest faces of my sleek crew-mates who are dripping wet, fresh in from the temples that surround us. I say nothing. “I would indeed be very lucky to see a shark,” I brood, “considering I can’t keep my face in the water for more than ten seconds.” I wonder how many days it will be until I drown myself through sheer lack of coordination.
With effort I do manage to plumb the nuances of the words, “Make a seal around your snorkel with your mouth,” and I get the hang of this rather rudimentary water sport. By the time we reach Steve’s Bommie, I give myself over to the spell of the Great Barrier Reef. I need to try the Super Snorkel. The Super Snorkel is a little engine driven oilless compressor that floats around on a canvas covered inner tube and pushes compressed air into two 60 ft hoses attached to divers below. Joe and Anders are out exploring with it as I prepare to go. I watch it putt, putt, putt a few yards away from the boat and wonder quietly what sort of learning curve I will face this go around below the surface. Fortunately for me, I won’t be alone.
Steve graciously agrees to take me through my dive. Picture him in tights with Extraordinarily Gifted And Dazzlingly Skilled (EGADS!) emblazoned on his chest. “ What could go wrong,” I reason, with this confident creature at my side? We get suited up and Steve sorts out the weight belt for me, gives me a few safety pointers, and reviews basic hand signals with which to communicate underwater. To my surprise these do not include one meaning “what is wrong with you – how uncoordinated are you?”. We swim out to the reef. Steve instructs me to take my time and let him know when I am ready to go down. I paddle around for a few minutes. “Ready” I think..…really I am,” and give him the signal. We begin our descent. As the water closes over me it crosses my mind that there is a moment one chooses, “I choose -- I’m choosing to sink below the surface of the water and keep sinking.” This amuses me wildly. What a thrill. Another world is waiting. Anxiety surfaces. I think, “This is ludicrous. I’m trusting some rubber hose attached to a floating inner tube that has a motor that sputters putt, putt, putt, but here I am and I’m not going to miss this.” Steve waits around while I’m thinking this through and trying to sink – I keep floating back towards the surface. He offers me a hand and guides me down. When we reach the bottom he points at himself , “watch me.” A big smile on his face, miming for me like some loony acrobat, he shows me how to control buoyancy - breathe in to rise and exhale to sink. I recall an old Herbert Benson relaxation response tape I used in college to get past fits of performance anxiety. “Breathe in through both nostrils…” Benson’s voice became my friend – my secret weapon - getting me past ridiculous terrors with his soothing weirdly dull voice, “now let go of any remaining tension completely…” It strikes me as hilarious that here I am at the bottom of the Coral Sea thinking about test anxiety & the mind/body connection & the undergrad library at the University of Maryland. I look around at the magnificent landscape. A school of hussars swim above. I focus on Steve and breathe in. Up I rise. I breathe out. Down I go. Steve gives me the ok signal which I return. I am flooded with a sense of well being – joy! I have been included once again in that great funny secret that sits in our cells, that we carry in our mitochondria and in the electric impulses that fire across our brain’s synapses; the secret of how easy and exquisite and natural everything can be. The generosity of the universe astonishes me.
Here are a some additional things Steve and I saw during that wonderful dive:
Moorish Idols
Teardrop Butterflies
Trumpetfish
Bird Wrasse
Sea Squirts
Sea Stars
Lots of Spotted Unicorns – Hilarious Bankers On Important Bizness
A Yellow Flutemouth – positively luminescent - bright yellow-green
Night/ Steve’s Bommie 5/18/02
Joe and Anders go out for a night snorkel. I sit below in a happy daze listening to them swim off into the night – one light between them – slightly jealous of their derring do – and wondering, “don’t the books include ‘don’t swim at night’ in their safety in the reef tips?”.
They saw:
2 sharks – weren’t sure what they were
sea urchins
gobis
Blue lined surgeons
“eyes” on coral which disappeared when a light was shown on them.
What a day.
5/19/02
From Steve’s Bommie to Pixie’s Pinnacle
Pixie’s Pinnacle is a small plug reef about a 3-hour sail north of Steve’s Bommie. Also recommended to us by Paddy Colwell from Reef Teach. (www.reefteach.com.au)
Lat 14 55
Long 145 40
Moored around 5:30 in early evening light. Joe and Anders were in the water in less than five minutes after we tied up to mooring. They swam out less than 25 yards to Pinnacle. It didn’t look like much from the deck of Cosmos. The site is submerged and is marked by what looks like a large floating dirty soccer ball – very different than the ribbon reefs that stretch and beckon when near. Minutes later Joe swims back to the boat – I half expect him to say this is a dead site let’s move on. He gets to Cosmos’ stern and starts laughing – “Throw away the lists (of what we had seen). Everything on those cards is down there.” The rest of us are in the water within minutes. As soon as I get in the water, I see Bream and Parrot fish – by the time I get to the Pinnacle’s edge, I am swimming through a school of small blue green fish.
This is another stupendous site densely populated with a fantastic range of corals and fish. Anders and Steve dive deep with their snorkels (!) and report that the side of Pixie’s is covered with Gorgonian fans. A shark visits and surprises us with his lack of timidity. Steve identifies him as a Grey Reef Shark. He is a tough looking creature who really checks out the five masked intruders to his hood. I keep an eye on him. Feeling safe in numbers I keep my eye on the shark. I am wary but thrilled. He lurks below us for a good ten minutes before fading off into the dusty blue of the deeper water.
We stay at the Pinnacle for the night and I go for a night snorkel with Anders and Steve. As we swim away from the boat, I feel the reef ahead - a dense fairy tale forest full of witches, warlocks and any number of creatures unknown to me. Steve and Anders swim on either side making me safe. The two of them are as generous with me as brothers. The phosphorescence turn up in every arm stroke or kick. Gorgeous. The reef is surprisingly quiet and it is not long before we swim back to the boat where we hang out lying on our backs in the water, looking at the stars and laughing. Steve cannonballs into the water repeatedly from the deck and calls out, “You know this is the way Aboriginal fishermen get shark to come.” “Oh piss off,” I think and start laughing. I clamber out of the water a few minutes later. I peel my gear off. Steve looks over at me and says, “Another ghost buried.” Ghosts. Grief. I think of a conversation held with a girlfriend a months ago. I was upset. “You never know what’s around the corner,” she said. I think of this old friend who irritates with her sisterly/motherly ministrations. I think how dear she is and how long held our friendship is. I shake my head in disbelief and joy and at the smile I can’t wipe off my face. Here I am in the Great Barrier Reef. You never know.
It’s quiet. Across the water are three mountains -- island reefs, black shadows against the night sky. A sliver of waxing moon hangs low. This place just envelopes me. This is a blast. This is amazing. Unbelievable. Incredible. Astounding. Time here expands for me and explodes into some sort of fantastic revealing sphere. I look at Steve and say, “What?” He dumbs it down for me -- “Another fear conquered.” Yes. Another great, really great day.
5/20/02
Pixie’s Pinnacle/Late Morning
Steve takes me for another dive. There are large schools of anthias - small bright orange fish. Blue pullers buzz about the groves of staghorn coral. Already with my limited exposure to the reefs, the Parrot Fish which swim by thrill me but now I feel a sense of familiarity with this fish I have dubbed The Chewer. Here we see, for the first tim, Lion Fish -- the brown and white stripped -- who’s venemous dorsal spines bring to mind nothing other than some over powdered, scarf wrapped Manhattan fashion plate. I allow myself a momentary fantasy – imagine myself living in and near the GBR area long enough and richly enough to know the reef so well as to have established an intimate rapport with each creature – pet names/first sightings/an awareness of what reefs hold which marine life and the best times of year to visit. I call myself back to the moment. This reef is utterly bewitching. The current is strong here and in order to stay in one place watching, I keep a steady low kick going. I hang out by the side of the reef marveling at the size and delicacy of the gorgonian fans, many of which hold black feather stars – the makings of some fabulous sexy boa. The side of the Pinnacle holds small caves created by small overhangs. Each small space is a miracle. I hang out and watch the activity. I spot a flame angelfish described as rare and timid in one of our dive books. It ducks back into the recesses of the overhang. Tucked in another corner of this overhang are a few soldier fish – red and white striped like so many swimming peppermints. I drop a foot and another show unfolds. Fish not included on our identification books/cards – small bright purple fish with a perfect round purple spot on each fin swim by. Two Moorish Idols swim through the porcelain like branches of an anenome; their yellow black markings thrilling against delicate pink of the anenome. Steve motions me over. Tucked away in this crowded reef lies a small ochre colored sea star, one leg curled slightly curved to the shape of the boulder coral it rests on. It’s simplicity is breathtaking. What a place. Stunning. Even swimming back to the boat (reluctant to leave the reef ) is a blast. I turn on my back and look at the bright blue of the water’s surface a foot or so above. I blow a little air from my mouth and am surprised by the mercury shimmy of the bubbles which rise. I wave both arms wildly at Steve. A nutcase having a vision “Look!!! Look!!!” I blow some bubbles. Steve responds by blowing rings. I could get used to this.
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