The Great Barrier Reef: A Google Street View
It was always a matter of time until this happened, but Google has finally released a street view version of the Great Barrier Reef. If travelling there isn’t a possibility for you then at least you can take a look around the place using Google maps, with the starting point of your underwater tour being right here. You can chase the fish around the reef without causing them any harm, but there is a lot more to this project than meets the eye.
The project is ran by Catlin Seaview Survey, who have been doing an amazing job of tracking the reef. Not only do they have underwater visuals of the Great Barrier Reef, there are numerous locations around the world for you to ‘dive’ into and explore. All the better if you have a nasty habit of getting sea sick, or can’t swim, or both. The best bit about this survey is the fact that as you explore the different dive spots you are presented with a whole bunch of interesting information. Although a lot of this information is also available via the Google Street View version, it isn’t quite the same!
Not only can you dive around each of the different reefs, you can learn about each individual reef, that’s pretty amazing if you ask me, especially considering you do this all from the comfort of your own home. For one, the sheer size of the Great Barrier Reef says a lot about this project. The Great Barrier Reef actually stretches over 2,300 kilometres, and covers an area of over 344,000 square kilometres; that’s a lot of diving. The sad part about this though, is that the reef is slowly being lost to us. The effects of pollution and overfishing are having a tremendous negative impact on the reef, so it might be that in the future, this street view will be all we have left to see one of the wonders of the world.
At a glance, my current favourite “dive” is the Osprey Reef, because as soon as you begin you see all the brilliant colours and pretty little fishies. Everyone loves pretty little fishies. Granted, the Osprey Reef isn’t technically part of the Great Barrier Reef, but I haven’t had chance to go and see everything yet, take a look yourself and you’ll see from the sheer volume of amazing imagery that there’s no way to get through all of this!
Having dived in the Great Barrier Reef myself, and almost drowned (it was my first time diving, I’m allowed to make beginner mistakes), I already have a pretty good recollection of this place. I’d certainly recommend putting in the miles to get there and experience it for yourself, after all, we could be some of the last people that will ever get to experience this fascinating aspect of nature. If you’re averse to staying on a boat, you can find day trips out to the roof from Cairns and other parts of Queensland, and they aren’t that expensive either!
Sadly, I did all this when I was a total noob to travelling and didn’t have my camera at this point. The camera we did have wasn’t waterproof and I had no GoPro, so you won’t get to see any super saturated, totally amazing (highly dangerous) shark pictures from me, but trust me they’re there. If you want to get pictures yourself you’ll need to consider getting an underwater casing, which you can pick up in Cairns. I know because I saw them! Whether your “waterproof” camera will work largely depends on how deep you end up diving, and with me being a complete beginner, well, it wasn’t worth trying to figure out at the expense of a camera!
My really lame diving attempt aside, you don’t REALLY get a feel of what the reef is like until you’re down there yourself. When the fish are right next to you, and you see the “inanimate” parts of the reef coming to life, it’s a completely surreal experience. There you have it, drag your lazy ass over to the Great Barrier Reef and jump in. Not literally, it’s pretty shallow in some parts and you’d probably injure yourself, but you get the idea.
Some people also decide to either live nearby (again, in and around Cairns) or stay on the boats. As far as I’m aware a lot of this kind of work can count towards obtaining your second year visa; and why work on a farm when you can dive the reef? Even if it doesn’t count (I’ll check when I get chance!) it’s still a jaw dropping place to spend time, and there are definitely people working on their Dive Master qualifications out on the reef, so I’m 100% sure that that is a possibility!
If you’ve been looking through the street view and found some great places and images, drop a comment and let the rest of us know where to look, I’m sure we could all do with a hand navigating such a vast library of reef.
