Sleep with the fishes
Watch the aquatic life then drift off under the sea in this unique new accommodation on the Great Barrier Reef.
The boat is leaving without us. With a long horn blast and one final sweep of nearby waters, the gangway is raised and the wave-piercer Seaflight heads back to land – minus 15 passengers. Ordinarily we would be concerned; we are, after all, on a pontoon on the Great Barrier Reef, a stunning but otherwise inconspicuous speck of human activity in an area the size of Japan, 39 nautical miles out to sea and a two-hour boat ride from Hamilton Island, from which we’d set out a few hours ago. Most of the 150-odd other passengers who accompanied us this morning are now headed back there, and from the top deck of the platform we are enthusiastically farewelling them – and keenly awaiting the official start to our night beneath the sea in one of Australia’s first underwater hotel rooms.
Gimmicky-sounding and even claustrophobia-inducing, the idea of sleeping below sea level on a pontoon with your room’s floor-to-ceiling windows looking straight into the reef might not appeal to all. And yet we have been primed to expect great things. “You’ll be crying when the boat comes back tomorrow morning,” a fellow traveller who’d spent the previous night on the platform told us only minutes earlier, his dreamy expression tinged with sadness as he prepared to leave. With thoughts of teeming aquatic life on the other side of our suite’s window – and even through glass inserts in the floor – we figured we had some idea about what he was intimating.
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But it is not until Seaflight turns towards the horizon and the Reefworld pontoon is finally empty of day trippers that we truly begin to understand him. The sense of solitude is immediate, unexpected, and wonderful. The sea, until minutes ago thrumming with snorkellers, is now quiet and still and ours in which to languish alone, albeit always under the eye of a lifesaver. We may have already spent four hours on the reef with so many other visitors dressed ninja-like in stinger suits, but suddenly it’s like we’re on a whole new trip – and this newly built, luxurious pontoon is at our disposal until tomorrow.
As a necessary landing point for those seeking to explore Hardy Reef, a simpler pontoon with bathrooms and a snorkelling platform has been moored here for years. In 2017, though, it was severely damaged by Cyclone Debbie. A second platform, several hundred metres away, has been serving day trippers since, while the foundation of the original was salvaged. In a delicate process that entailed the largest natural coral transplant ever seen on the reef, almost 4000 pieces were removed from the old moorings and replanted on the existing reef wall. Over many months the original pontoon was rebuilt, with new showers and change rooms plus two highly anticipated underwater suites and space on the upper deck for up to 24 guests to sleep beneath the stars. In late November the pontoon was towed back to Hardy Reef and it reopened for business in early December, welcoming hundreds by day and an exclusive few by night.
“It’s like the fish know when the boat isn’t here,” our host Gabrielle says during the welcome that follows Seaflight’s departure. She introduces us to the small crew who live out here for up to a week; they include the pontoon’s captain and a chef who, all these kilometres from land, has the use of a fully equipped kitchen complete with pizza oven.
Most of the 15 overnight guests will sleep on the pontoon’s open upper deck tonight, in queen-sized outdoor beds that look like designer cocoons with reading lights and retractable netting. Once those beds are allocated, the rest of us are taken to the ship’s lower level, where a separate entrance reveals a steep staircase leading down to our suite.
Inside, our room is both familiar and unlike anything we’ve ever seen. There is no TV or wardrobe, no internet, Wi-Fi or mobile reception, and, no, the windows do not open. All of which is entirely welcome because for all its comforts, our brand new suite – with its plush kingsize bed and well-stocked bathroom – is still eclipsed by its unique outlook.
The view is extraordinary. Sunlight has slashed through the waterline four metres above, throwing a dazzling spotlight on the shoals of fish on the other side of our oversized window: yellowtail fusiliers, damselfish and even a giant trevally swim past as we eye them in awe. With more species darting beneath the glass panels inserted in the floor, it’s like standing on the precipice of the world’s largest aquarium.
For the next few hours it’s difficult to decide where to be: snorkelling, lying on deck on a giant bean bag, taking in the aquatic action while lying on our king bed, or even watching it all from the bathroom, where the full-sized window provides a loo with a view.
Finally, at 5.30pm, there is a reprieve from that glorious indecision when we gather on the rear top deck to watch the sunset. The overnight tariff includes copious amounts of food and drinks, including beer and wine (we are asked not to drink until we have finished swimming for the day), and tonight’s spread of canapes includes chilled Bowen prawns with spiced Japanese kewpie mayonnaise and salad, and trout cured with Bundaberg rum and Airlie Beach sugarcane, served with creme fraiche.
The view at this hour is even more tranquil, as the temperature settles down to the low 20s and the cloudless sky transforms into multiple shades of pink. At the empty helicopter pads anchored nearby, hundreds of seabirds settle down for the night. When the sun has almost disappeared, we move to the other end of the deck. With the daytime awning retracted, we sit beneath a canopy of fairy lights as the feast continues into dinner. Platters of steaks and reef fish fillets, salads and vegetable skewers are brought to two large tables, where the day ends with a long, convivial conversation among visitors from France, Poland, Australia and the UK, all marvelling at their good fortune to be here.
It is not easy to sleep. Our bed is supremely comfortable and dressed with fresh new linen, but the sheer thrill of lying down with that aquatic vista at the end of the bed is hard to tame. With the internal lights turned off we can see some of the fluorescent passing parade, but the full effect is altered because the occupants of the adjoining suite keep their outside light on all night. At 3am, when we wake briefly, the area outside our window is teeming with ocean life.
The sun rises early and so do we, keen to see what spectacle the post-dawn hours will produce. By 6am the neighbourhood is frenetic; outside the bedroom window it’s like a multi-level aquatic highway at rush hour as schools of sergeant majors dart past in one direction and schooling hardyheads in another, and every so often a diaphanous jellyfish pulsates by. But the absolute highlight is when a dark mass appears near the top of the window and, propped up in bed with multiple pillows, we watch as a green sea turtle turns its head ever so slightly towards us and gracefully glides past.
There are still hours to go before the day’s new (human) visitors arrive, and hours more until we will join them on the return journey back to shore. In between there will be a bounty of more delicious meals – espresso coffee and eggs cooked to order for breakfast, freshly baked pizzas and salads for lunch, and platters of muffins in between. There will be more time to snorkel or to sit in the underwater observatory, and more trips to be taken in the pontoon’s semi-submersible.
But after two days out here, nothing will cap the sheer joy of watching that turtle swim past our hotel room, in splendid isolation, somewhere under the sea.
Reef suites from $799 per person, twin share; food and beverages included. cruisewhitsundays.com