Going North, Days 1 & 2

This post was republished from the archive of my previous blog as a means of record-keeping. To read SaraEileen.com from the beginning of the site’s history, start here.

May and I have been trying to get out of Sydney for the entire year. We’ve wanted to visit Melbourne. I hoped to go to the Gold Coast, we talked about renting a car and driving north for days. But it didn’t happen; we worked, we were busy, we got caught up and I was broke and time just moves too fast.

Finally last month I sat down and found a cheap flight to Cairns, and we booked it before we could think about it too much. “I want you to see the reef before we go,” I said to Maymay then.

“Why?”

I shrug. “For all I know we won’t be back here for another ten years. The reef could be closed or gone, or we could never come back at all.”

“Okay.”

“It’s worth seeing. Trust me.”

We fly to Cairns on Thursday morning, and I forget to take the villanelles that Switch and Boy made for us out of my purse, so my first memory of this vacation is of the uniformed security officer pulling three wickedly sharp artisan knives from my pencil case with his eyebrows up to his hairline. I smack my face with my hand, and pay eight dollars to check the bag instead.

The flight is miserable. I sleep, while Maymay groans in pain. He slept two hours the night before, and I had to forcibly drag him from his keyboard to get him to come away with me.

We’re both so tired that we spend our first afternoon in Cairns walking around like zombies, practically drooling with our arms in front of us. Cairns is sticky-hot, bright sidewalks with palms and frangipanis bowed under the sun. I walk him up and down the streets crowded with tourist shops, and he clings to my hand like a lost puppy. Eventually we sit and pour coffee down our throats, heat be damned.

It grows mercifully dark and bats start streaming from the trees, along with green parakeets and fat, grey-blue parrots. We go further into the city. In the bead store where I bought red coral the last time I was in Cairns, Maymay puts his earphones in as I browse. The slight, black-haired saleswoman pours boulder opals across a black velvet tray for me, and we chat as I sort them with my fingertips. I find a round cabochon of muddy light brown chocked with green flash, one of the best boulder opals I’ve ever seen. It’s ridiculously cheap and I do a little dance as I buy it.

“Hey boything,” I kiss the part in May’s hair. “Ready to go sleep?” He collapses against me.

We try to catch the shuttle, but it’s late, and then it doesn’t stop for us, and eventually we just take a cab. Wearily, I go to the hostel desk to learn that the shuttle won’t pick up from where it drops off, which would explain why it drove right by us, even if it doesn’t make me feel better.

Our hostel is like any hostel in Australia, which means the pool is nice, the music is loud, the beer flows freely and everyone looks young. May is almost asleep in my arms when the intercom in the ceiling of our room crackles to life.

“Cane toad racing in the bar in five minutes!” it yells at us. “If you’ve never seen a cane toad race, well you should, it’s not to be missed, cooooooome on down.” I groan and May puts a pillow over his head as the noise blares. I wonder how expensive it would be to start a chain of hostels for people who drink wine, and actually like to sleep at night.

After May passes out I go back downstairs, where the cane toads have been mercifully raced and shot. I curl in a wide wicker chair with The Ground Beneath Her Feet, and read my magical realism rock and roll until the television distracts me. May comes downstairs to get me an hour later, looking wistful. He woke up, and was lonely.

The next morning we wake up aching early, pack towels, put on bathing suits instead of clothes, and discover we are starving. We go downstairs and the shuttle doesn’t come. Eventually I realize I forgot about the time zone shift and woke us up an hour early. “Damnit damnit fuckhellall,” I groan into the thick hot air.

We booked the Big Cat day cruise for our first day on the reef. It’s a huge white and silver boat that looks like an oversized sneaker, and they’re serving drip coffee – American coffee – in white mugs, which we drink on the top deck looking out over the sailboats anchored across from Marlin Marina. Maymay buys and devours a ridiculously delicious bacon and feta quiche.

We collect stinger suits, flippers, masks and snorkels, and Green Island comes over the horizon looking like the literal picture-perfect tropical paradise that it is. Green Island has a five-star resort on it, or so they say. Walking along the long dock toward shore, I see a cluster of low buildings selling beer and ice cream, along with a gift shop, a little pool and an information center. The rest of the resort is blocked by overhanging jungle.

We put our things in a coin locker. “Where do you want to swim, in the supervised area or over by the dock where the coral is?” I ask May, who is slathering sunblock on his face.

He shrugs. “Wherever.”

I fall over and stand up again as I yank the stinger suit over my thighs. “I look like a big blue sausage,” I declare.

I’m a strong swimmer, and although May doesn’t know how to swim very well, he loves the water and his arms never seem to tire out. I lead us to the unsupervised beach. Down the boardwalk, the coral sand at the edge of the water is crumbly white, like cake crumbs.

May has trouble getting his mask adjusted over the curly mass of his hair. I sit with him in shallow water and show him how to pull the straps close. We get set and start swimming out, over mottled patches of green weeds. I push us toward the dock slowly. A parrotfish flits over the sand and I breathe in a big gulp of salt water.

May’s mustache is a problem. Water is seeping under the bottom of the mask and flooding his nose. His head is starting to hurt and he keeps standing up, and my heart contracts a little because if we can’t figure this one out our vacation is going to start sucking very rapidly.

He keeps at it and we head out into deeper water, but he can’t go for more than a few strokes without stopping, He’s never been snorkeling before, and I can see the fins feel awkward. He’s moving his hands in the tight, jerky motions that mean he’s frustrated.

I swim up to him and watch as he dips his head in and out of the water, experimenting. “Why don’t you try holding your nose over the mask?” I offer tentatively. He scowls as he fits his fingers over his nose, but soon we realize that it’s working, and I clap under the water in relief and excitement.

We swim further out, the grass ends and miniature coral bommies start popping up underneath us. I’m not watching them so much as I am watching him, kicking his feet down into the water like riding a bike. Later on, he’ll get the hang of the flippers.

We swim. I forgot how much I love to swim in clear water. May follows a blue-spotted stingray, floating over it as it drifts across the sand. For a moment the sun comes out, the entire ocean floor is etched in ripples of light. A cloud of miniature blue fish drifts up from a hanging plate of yellow coral. I turn my head and two black-tipped reef sharks are headed my way, and as I watch one actually rolls over, playing with the other.

In the sunlight under the water, May’s hair looks Little Mermaid Disney red. We go along the dock and then out into the bay and then back along the dock again, then break the surface. A young guy in white shorts is walking above us on the dock, and he tells me it’s 12:30. We’re very late for lunch; we didn’t expect to swim for two hours.

May is laughing. He thinks the reef is amazing. “You look beautiful,” he says. “I was watching you swim. You’re the most beautiful thing in the water.”

In the afternoon, after scooping up the last scraps of the buffet lunch, we go out in a long glass-bottomed boat. The guide feeds the fish and I take photos of the frenzy. We walk around Green Island and find hermit crabs in the sand of an abandoned beach. May makes friends with small brown and white birds who hop in our path.

We go back to the boat early, have ice cream, curl up at an empty table on the edge of an Asian tour group. A young Indian couple sits at the table next to us. She has intricate henna on her hands and feet, and I wonder vaguely if they’re on their honeymoon, before we both fall dead asleep.

Back in Cairns, we book a crocodile tour for Sunday and then walk down the Esplanade to a coffee shop with lounge chairs on the sidewalk. May moans as he sits down, and I feel like my back might crack in half with the exhaustion. We drink our coffee like it’s a three-course meal and we’ve both been starved for days. Maymay becomes fascinated watching a colony of ants move shreds of lettuce with mass coordination. He drops crumbs in strategic places and squees as scout ants discover them, lay down trails, and bring their friends in long crawling trails.

We give up on the shuttle bus and walk back to the hostel. Halfway there the sky opens in heavy, hot rain. We do our laundry, collapse on our bed, wake up the next morning and do it all over again.