Travel Biography - Week 126.

In 2000, we spent two weeks in the Holy Land, the second week at a backpacker's hostel in Jerusalem's Old City. During that week, I had an idea of a day spent in Eilat, the southernmost town in Israel, which is a short distance from the border with Egypt. One afternoon, Alex and I sauntered along Jaffa Road to the bus station to find out about the service timetable and whether the fares were within our budget. We then cashed a traveller's cheque at a bank.

Eilat Coral Beach, south of the town centre, is on the west coast of the Gulf of Aqaba, one of two fingers extended from the arm of the Red Sea, the other being the Gulf of Suez. Between the two fingers is the Sinai Peninsula, almost wholly in Egypt, and the traditional site of the Decalogue delivered to the children of Israel as written in the Biblical book of Exodus. From Eilat, the town of Aqaba could be seen across the gulf, backed by the Jordan mountains. The Red Sea itself is the arm of the Indian Ocean.

Our Journey to Eilat.

Eilat Town.

Coral Beach, Eilat.

Alex at Coral Beach.

View of the coral shelf seen from the jetty.

At the Pier or Jetty.

Our bus departed from Jerusalem New City at 8.00 in the morning for a four-hour, 366 km or 227-mile bus journey to Eilat. This included a short break stop at En Gedi, on the west coast of the Dead Sea, to refresh ourselves. Further along the route, not far from Masada, I caught a momentary glimpse of a peculiar-looking but famous pillar a little way above the bus window I was sitting next to. This was Lot's Wife turned into a pillar of salt when the family fled from Sodom, which was under divine judgement. Just as surprising was that as the bus was approaching the pillar, my thoughts were far away as I gazed at the seat in front. Suddenly, without any forethought, my head turned to see the pillar as we passed by - as if turned by an invisible hand.

I would love to watch a TV documentary about that pillar if the lab scientists ever load it into an MRI scanner. What would the image reveal? Just a solid block of salt? Or the outline of a well-preserved female body encased deep within the rocky structure? Such a positive scan result would cause a psychological earthquake for both believers and sceptics!

The bus travelled through miles and miles over the barren desert of Judah, bypassing the town of Beersheba a few miles west of the route. Across the valley on our left, the border with Jordan continues, backed by the Rift mountains once inhabited by the Ammonites towards the north of the Dead Sea, the Moabites along its east coast, and the Edomites by the time we arrived at Eilat.

Four hours after boarding at Jerusalem, we finally arrived in Eilat town centre. The air was warm, and along the sidewalks lining the streets were fine water sprays where anyone could stand and cool down. In all, the town itself looked somewhat tacky for a holiday resort, consisting of low commercial buildings and dominated by the single runway of Eilat Airport which, unlike all other cities, was in the heart of town. At the beachfront, modern multistorey hotels reached for the sky, obscuring the golden brown mountains of the Rift Valley that begin at Galilee and continue on along the Jordan Valley, the Dead Sea, and then the Gulf of Aqaba and the whole length of the Red Sea before crossing over to the continent of Africa to end at Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

However, I knew where I wanted to go, as the town centre held little interest to me. We found a bus stop for the route to Coral Beach, nearly 7 km or 4.3 miles south of the bus station. When we arrived, the bus carried on a little further where it terminated close to Taba, on the Egyptian side of the border. Amazingly enough, we were the only two people who alighted at this location. There were some people on the beach, diving and snorkelling but being off-season, there were no beach crowds like we see during the summer at Bournemouth on a warm, sunny weekend. By comparison, Coral Beach was virtually deserted.

View of Coral Beach from the Pierhead.

Facing towards the Egyptian Border.

A closer look at the shallow coral shelf.

The Mountains of Jordan are behind Alex.

We had to pay a fee to enter the beach area which was backed by a hotel. I thought that this would have been ideal for a week's holiday, or even a long weekend. As a hotel guest, I would have had unlimited access to the beach and the coral reef. At the hotel reception, I hired a snorkelling mask and also bought a single-use underwater camera like the ones I had in Australia. Alex and I came to an agreement for her to remain dry due to her pregnancy. She was cooperative, and although she would have liked to have sampled some snorkelling experience for herself, she agreed to remain on the pierhead for the baby's sake. She also took care of our picnic lunch and other necessities after paying for the use of one of the clothes lockers.

Entry into the sea was not from the beach itself but from the end of a pier or jetty jutting some 30 metres out to sea. As the sandy beach sloped into the sea, the sand gave way to a shallow coral shelf, a very spectacular and colourful sight from the pier. The shelf continued on until it suddenly dropped to the sea floor, several metres down, forming a submerged cliff wall of coral. This was the coral garden I was about to see. The seafloor itself remains barren of any coral life as it consists of sand, and hard, firm rock is needed for the polyps to settle and establish a colony. Although I was able to make comparisons with the Great Barrier Reef, this reef was quite different. The Australian version has the reef spreading across the sea floor, whether surrounding a coral cay, a continental island off the mainland, or covering a range of seamounts such as the Outer Barrier Reef, all coral reefs need hard bedrock.

Another difference between Coral Beach and the Great Barrier Reef was the condition of the water. The sea within the Gulf of Aqaba has a greater salinity level than around Australia. The higher salt content makes the water very clear and free from the cloudiness common in the Indo-Pacific. Therefore, when it comes to underwater photography, the photos I got back were superior to those from Australia in clarity and sharpness of colour.

After I had changed into my swimwear, Alex and I made our way to the pier, passing the line that roped off entry into the sea directly from the beach. As we strolled along the pier, we watched the strip of sand turn into a coral bed as it sloped beneath the surface. At the end of the pier, a short platform had steps leading straight into the deep water. Alex sat on one of those steps whilst I swam straight out, with mask and snorkel fully in position.

Coral Detail using my underwater camera.

All these pictures were taken by me.

Coral detail.

Coral detail

As I surveyed the spectacular reef, my mind went back to Australia just three years earlier. The sheer joy of coral reef snorkelling returned, but with a difference. In 1997, I was free, single and with little responsibility. This time, I was married, my beloved wife was here with me, and a child was on its way. As I looked ahead, I'd be trading my reef snorkelling for sleepless nights as I tend to a crying child.

The fish I saw while I was snorkelling at Coral Beach Reef were more abundant than at the Great Barrier Reef. The most common was Sergeant Major Damselfish, which I saw also in the Indo-Pacific. Also, the Jewel Fairy Basslet swarming in great numbers around the coral provided a spectacular sight in itself, and actually swimming with them was an experience no visit to an aquarium could match. I also identified a single Emperor Angelfish with its beautiful shining blue body - beautiful to us, but a message to potential predators that this fish would not be good to eat. Bright colours are often associated with poison and a warning to predators.

I spent a considerable amount of time in the water while Alex watched and waited patiently. It's during those times - like I was at the Great Barrier Reef, and now here in the Gulf of Aqaba, I wished that I had done a lot better at school, and attended University (in my day there were no university fees. I would have lived on a Government student grant) and entered the field of marine biology - and then specialise in coral reefs. Instead of climbing a ladder in the cold to clean windows owned by shifty customers, I would have learned to scuba dive, work in a laboratory, and contribute to the reef's health. Dealing with bleaching caused by the warming of the surrounding water would have demanded full commitment - and the joy that would have accompanied such dedication when I saw the polyps beginning to thrive.

But in the sixties, the decade of schooling, I was aware of the existence of corals, but I knew nothing about them. Even right up to 1997, my knowledge of corals was very limited. It took a first-hand view of the coral polyps at Green Island for the scales to fall out of my eyes and discover what is to me an exciting new world. And a world I would have done my best to dedicate my living to protect and preserve.

We remained at the pierhead as Alex took out our lunch and picnicked over the sea. Afterwards, we took a stroll together along the beach while my stomach digested the food. I looked around this beautiful environment. Instead of the sea vanishing in a straight line at the horizon as all large bodies of water do, here the pinkish mountains of Jordan back what looks more like a large ribbon lake or a very wide river. By looking carefully at the base of the Jordan mountains, I could see the faraway town of Aqaba, after which the whole gulf is named.

There weren't many people at Coral Beach, but there were a small number. Some of the divers and snorkelers were crowding around a spot in the sea about 70 or 80 metres off the coast. I began to feel curious about what these people were looking at. After a while, Alex and I made our way to the pierhead. Once again, Alex sat where she sat before and watched. With the snorkel equipment in place, I swam out to where the offshore divers were.

What I saw was a small seamount, an isolated conical rock formation that had been colonised by a healthy-looking reef. Some divers were close to it, but from where I was, I still had a good view. Too bad that all the snapshots of the underwater camera were all exposed. I would have loved to have taken at least two or three of this isolated reef, with divers attending to it.

Sergeant Major Damselfish

Jewel Fairy Basslets.

Sergeant Majors and other species near Pierhead.

Returning to Jerusalem.

The schedule for the day was four hours to get to Eilat, and four hours to return to Jerusalem. Since our bus was scheduled to leave at 17.00 hours to arrive in Jerusalem at 21.00 hours, that allowed us a clear four hours at Coral Beach before we made our way back to the Central Bus Station. To us, four hours was enough. Within that timeslot, I saw as much of the coral as my heart desired. Furthermore, I have an underwater camera with a film of 24 exposures, all of the coral, the acetate film awaiting development and from it, prints made. All the underwater pics featured here are from that film.

We saw dusk as the bus headed north through Judah. The mountains of Jordan continued northward, uninterrupted, as these mountains are the result of a Rift Valley stretching as far north as Galilee.

Alex was not pleased with me as she slept next to me on the bus. She really would have liked to have seen the reef for herself, and I might have been overcautious in protecting our baby. Maybe next time I hope to be happier in watching her enjoy a swim. Fortunately, that opportunity wasn't far off. However, by the time we arrived back at the hostel, things between us were beginning to look up.

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Next Week: En Gedi, where I could have ended up in hospital.

Travel Biography - Week 79.

Preparing for the First Visit to the Great Barrier Reef.

Note: Unless specified, all the photos posted here are my own, taken in 1997.

I quickly settled in Cairns soon after arriving in 1997. Furthermore, I couldn't have arrived at a better time of the year, as the monsoon season had already ended and the dry season had just begun. Although the locals refer to May/June as Winter, there are only two seasons within this particular region of the tropical belt, the wet and dry seasons, with warmth all year round. Yet, the region around Cairns has always been the area with the highest rainfall levels in the whole of Australia. Even while I was standing at Cairns Harbour and looking across Chinaman Creek at the hills of Trinity Forest Reserve, there were times when the summits of the hills plunged into thick, grey thunderclouds.

I have also found out that the issue raised when venturing out to sea was the Box Jellyfish, also known as Sea Wasps or even Stingers. Personally, I sometimes refer to this particular species as the Atheist's Sting, after one YouTuber, an ex-Jehovah's Witness turned atheist, quoted the Box Jellyfish as a classic example proving the non-existence of God, for why such a loving, caring God created a marine animal that serves no positive good to anyone, yet, with intense pain, can suffocate and kill a child, or even an adult, if severely stung and with no antidote available?

At the hostel, I did a bit of research before deciding to venture out to sea. Again, I was very fortunate. The jellyfish has a very short lifespan. It spawns at the start of Spring and lives to the end of Autumn (that is around nine months from August to April.) Therefore, I found out that my arrival at Cairns was during the "safe window of opportunity" when I could explore the Great Barrier Reef without encountering danger.

Aerial View of Green Island Coral Cay. Stock photo.

Leaving Cairns for Green Island.

Approaching Green Island on the Big Cat.

On the morning after my arrival, the hostel receptionist gave me some advice and recommended the Big Cat to Green Island, a coral cay 17 miles, or 27 km from the mainland which involved a 45-minute sailing from Cairns Harbour. Furthermore, tickets for the Big Cat day trips were on sale here at the hostel reception, and therefore no need to book at the mall. This was to be the first of three visits to the Reef. The second visit was at Low Isles, a coral cay off Port Douglas, and the third a fringe reef at Border Island of the Whitsundays, an archipelago of continental islands off the coast of Arlie Beach, all in Queensland.

I could liken these trips to school grading. Green Island suited those who were new to snorkelling. The only time I tried snorkelling was on the Spanish coast in the Tossa De Mar holiday resort, 25 years earlier in 1972. Back then, a snorkeller lent me his equipment for me to try. Instead, with my nasal passage blocked by the mask, some water entered the breathing tube into my mouth and down my throat. This caused me to panic. But I managed to climb onto a nearby rock and remove the snorkel before returning the gear to its owner. Since then, I have never been near a snorkel - until 1997.

As such, I saw Green Island as equivalent to an elementary or primary school. Next was snorkelling at Low Isles, followed by Heron Island, both equated with secondary school education due to richer coral thriving in deeper water. I would equate actual scuba diving to that of undergraduate level at university. Scuba diving was more suitable for the Outer Reef exploration.

Coral Beach is seen from the jetty.

Cay lush vegetation

The boardwalk through the forest.

Visiting Green Island, Coral Cay.

The offshore islands making up the Great Barrier Reef fall into two categories. The one I'm about to visit is a cay. That is a mound of coarse sand and broken shells swirled into a heap, breaking the surface of the shallow ocean by strong currents driven by past storms. Eventually, vegetation, whose seeds were brought in by flocks of birds and ocean currents alike, consolidated the mound into a permanent island. The beach surrounding the cay consists of coarse sand and broken shells, quite unlike the "fine golden sands" of romanticised desert islands with a single palm tree growing in its centre. Rather, I saw that the typical coral cay is capped with a forest of tropical trees and bushes.

The Reef is built on an underwater shelf that was once dry land before the melting of the Ice Age. Former hills that rose from this strip of land were isolated to form continental islands. As the islands plunged deeper into the sea, fringe reefs grew around them, and as I saw at Heron Island, these corals were richer and more diverse. In 1997, fringe reefs were attracting as many tourists as cays.

The Great Barrier Reef is classed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the natural wonders of the world, along with the Grand Canyon of Arizona. Therefore, for conservation purposes, much of the Reef was inaccessible to the public and had limited access only to scientists. But Green Island remains open to tourists and provides the ideal opportunity to gain confidence with a snorkel.

The Big Cat catamaran pulled out of Cairns Harbour, along with a larger vessel destined for the outer Reef and also for Fitzroy Island, a continental island southeast of Green Island and visible on the horizon from the cay along with the mountainous coast of the mainland.

The cafeteria on board the catamaran also sold single-use underwater film cameras, and hired out snorkels. I bought the one and paid a deposit for the other. It also served as a lecture room where we learned to fundamentals of snorkelling as well as some useful knowledge of the Reef, of which Green Island is very much part.

After the talk was given, I made my way to the upper deck of the vessel and watched as it sped along the rich blue waters of the Coral Sea region of the Pacific Ocean. Presently, Green Island began to show as a narrow strip on the horizon, and it wasn't until we drew closer that the cay became more apparent.

After the catamaran moored on the island's rather long jetty, we made our way to the beach with the instruction to return to the vessel at a certain time.

During the talk, I was advised to wear a shirt whilst snorkelling. This was to protect my back from potential sunburn, as here in the Southern Hemisphere, the sun could be particularly hot. The button-up shirt I was wearing was the only one I had on me, but being cotton, I was sure that the sun would dry it off after a short while. Therefore, I didn't mind wearing it in the water.

Coral detail.

A Damson Fish.

Coral detail. The polyps are all animals.

I chose a shallow spot and practised snorkelling until I gained enough confidence to venture into deeper water. After that, I was okay and began to glide over the corals beneath me. Unfortunately, during the nineties, the reef surrounding the cay was badly affected by the Crown-of-Thorns starfish, a voracious predator of coral. The need for culling of these starfish was necessary for the preservation of the reef, and various programmes were organised to keep the population under control. But as I swam over bare patches within the reef, these areas testified to the damage done by these starfish. However, the rise in the Crown-of-Thorns population and the damage they had caused to the Reef, was partly, if not mainly, due to human decimation of its predator, the Triton, a giant sea snail that preys on the starfish.

Unfortunately, I didn't see that many fish among the corals, but what I did see were mainly the five-striped Damsel Fish. Barely four centimetres long, they showed no fear of our presence, and neither did they dash off if we got too near. As such, the underwater tranquillity that apparently exists among the reef indeed, portrays to me at least, a submarine paradise. Although more of a carpet covering the sea floor rather than a lush garden, yet, I thoroughly enjoyed not only looking at a coral reef but swimming among the countless number of polyps making up the corals. Also, as I remembered from the on-board talk, these polyps were animals related to the jellyfish, and not plants, even if the corals resembled plants more than animals.

After spending a considerable time snorkelling over the corals, I took a stroll alone through the forest that covers the cay. Tropical trees, palms, shrubs, scramblers, and vines cover the island, and a boardwalk cuts across the middle. There was a hotel with its own swimming pool on the island. All this was rather incredible, as the whole cay was only 3.5 km squared. That is, if the island was reshaped into a square, each side would be only 1,870 metres long. Actually, it didn't take me that long to walk around the island to end where I started.

After several hours, we were all called back to the catamaran for the return sailing to Cairns Harbour. I felt exhilarated, as I believe, the others with me also were. All day the weather was beautiful, with a cloudless sky and the warm sunshine brightening the corals underwater, allowing me to take underwater photos - for the first time ever. But that wasn't all. Before the trip, I only had a mild curiosity about what the GBR was like. But after that trip, I became a fully-fledged convert! My enthusiasm for the Reef equalled that for the Grand Canyon during the first hike completed in 1978.

After arriving back in Cairns, I had to restock before settling in the hostel. But while I was in the town centre, I saw a photography shop facing the esplanade. The single-use cardboard camera I carried was enclosed in waterproof transparent plastic, thus, the exposed film was well protected. However, I was eager to see the finished result. So, unlike all the land pics I had taken with my own camera, I took the camera into the shop to have the film processed there and then. When I collected the package sometime later, I was thrilled with the prints, a few of them are posted here.  

The Big Cat Catamaran we sailed.

No! Not me - the boat!

To those who grew up in the digital age, for me, there is something so nostalgic about photographic film - that strip of cellulose acetate coated with light-sensitive chemicals that reacted instantly when exposed to light. Especially with the old-type camera which carried risks of fogging, double exposure, camera shake, out-of-focus images, or even an accidental exposure of the film should the back of the camera fly open, ruining the most precious and never-again-to-be-seen images ever taken. And then the week-long wait while the film is processed in a laboratory housed in some unknown location. Oh, the fun and tension of old-school photography! By the time I was in Australia, this new-fangled one-hour-long wait only was required before the completed product was returned.

Back at the hostel, I made my way upstairs to the members's kitchen to prepare dinner.

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Next Week is the Christmas Eve weekend. So I will take a break from blogging, and instead, post photos covering the Biography from the 1976 trip to Israel to the 1997 visit to Cairns. Week 80 will resume in the New Year as I prepare to visit Low Isles Coral Cay.