Diving the Great Barrier Reef | JONATHAN BIRD'S BLUE WORLD

The Great Barrier Reef. It's probably the most famous reef in the world, and the largest. It's not just visible from the air, but from space. Hi, I'm Jonathan Bird and welcome to my world! 🎵 You know, it's hard to believe I've been diving for over 20 years and I've never seen the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. But today, I've made it all the way to Cairns, and I'm going to get my chance. Cairns is a city in Queensland, the northeast state of Australia. The Great Barrier Reef runs 1,600 miles along the coast of Queensland. It's made of millions of interconnected coral heads, forming the world's largest structure made by living organisms. To see the whole thing, you need to get pretty high up. This satellite image was made from 400 miles above the ocean. You can see the reef just offshore. For my first encounter on the Great Barrier Reef, I'll be making the trip out on a big catamaran operated by Sunlover Cruises. The crew unties the boat and I enjoy the scenery as we head offshore. 90 minutes later, I arrive at the Sunlover pontoon. I have never seen a dive operation like this before. The boat is huge, but we don't dive from the boat. Instead, we dock at this massive pontoon, sort of like a floating dive shop, and spend the day right next to the reef in a protected spot. Pure luxury! Time to check out the facilities. You don't have to be a scuba diver to enjoy the Great Barrier Reef. The reef is so shallow, you can snorkel! A lot of people who don't dive love to come out and get a first-hand look at the reef here. The water is clear and it's not too deep. But even people who don't like to get wet can see the reef on a submarine! Well I'll tell you what, this is the easy way to see the underwater world right here. Just relax, sit back, have a drink, watch the fish go by. And for a diving experience unlike any other, anyone can try the Sea Walker experience. All you need is a 40 pound helmet. I walk down the stairs into the water and the staff outfits me with the strangest piece of dive gear I have ever used. With no fins on, I just walk out to a massive school of fish. My hair doesn't even get wet. This is incredible! They've got about a thousand fish around here! I feel like Dr. Sylvia Earle, Deep Sea Diver. This is a very different way to go scuba diving. And this just goes to show you, if you don't want to wear a mask, and you don't want to wear a regulator, and maybe you can't even swim that well, you can do this! It's just like walking! You know, I've had a lot of experiences underwater, and this is definitely one of the most unique. To demonstrate how this helmet works, I have an ordinary water glass, which obviously is full of water. But if I turn it upside down, I can fill it with air. Now you can see that it keeps the air in, but if you turn it right side up…so we don't want to turn this right side up! I pose for a picture because you never know when you're going to get to do this again. Next I meet Vance Fahey, who will be my dive master for a scuba dive on the reef today. Well I can't wait, let's get suited up! Get right into it! Alright! Let's do it! Not only do I have a nice easy staircase to walk right down into the water, but a platform for putting on my fins. I can get used to this! On the platform is a group of new divers getting their first taste of the underwater world. At last I head out onto the reef to explore. I see many types of hard corals, beautiful pastel colored soft corals, and lots of fan corals. Near the reef I find one of the largest giant clams I have ever seen. I can't imagine how much this clam must weigh! The mantle gets its bright colors from embedded symbiotic algae that harvest the sun's rays for energy. I find a huge crack in the reef and have a little fun swimming through it. On the other end, I'm greeted by a sea turtle. She comes right over. There are lots of divers around this reef, and this turtle knows that the divers won't hurt her. Once she has decided that I'm not doing anything terribly interesting, she goes back to looking for her favorite sponges to eat. I turn and head back towards the platform across the shallow reef. At the platform, I'm greeted by a friendly moray wrasse. This monster of a fish reaches both the length and the weight of a motorcycle. I'm just glad they prefer to eat crustaceans and mollusks, not divers. I think I've made a new friend. Unfortunately, I'm low on air and it's time to head back to my habitat up above. As we head back to the dock, I reflect on a fun-filled day. It's amazing how many things I did in one day on the reef. Well, I finally did it! I got to see the Great Barrier Reef. And I discovered that of all the reefs I've visited—and let me tell you, that's a lot of reefs—the Great Barrier Reef is probably the most accessible for everybody from certified divers all the way to people that don't even like to swim. There's something for every age and experience level out here on the Barrier Reef.