Great Barrier Reef

As young adults living in Wollongong, my now wife and I were fortunate enough to be able to take a 3000 km road trip north to Great Keppel Island. I think we did it 3 or 4 times with other friends some trips and by ourselves on others. One such trip we decided to so a scuba dive course. It was just a one day thing and ended up with a dive on the reef north of Great Keppel. It was great, crustal clear water, colourful fish and coral, a water snake came and said hi to me too. A superb life changing experience. It was a surreal and almost euphoric event.
A few years later with a little more disposable income we ventured to Hawaii with friends. Of course, we had the full tourist experience and wanted more. A dive! just the thing. Actually, why not book 2, there was a discount if you did that. After donning our ill fitting and warn out gear, we descended into the depths and along a large man made structure. The guide stopped us at one point indicating no further. The power station outfall pipe was a good way of being shot out to an oceanic demise. The water was murky, there was a fish at one point and I was starting to taste the rubber of my wet-suit through my skin. We were at the outlet of a power station cooling water exhaust! the sewer of the energy world.
We returned to the surface and the guide's first words were "did you see the fish?" THE fish, yes, we noticed IT. The warm outflow from the power station was to bring fish to the area supposedly. He was literally over the moon about this dive, excited at the clarity, the fish just everything. I could not have been more underwhelmed. I expressed my underwhelmity. He enquired as to why I was not happy. I explained that on our first dive on the Great Barrier Reef...."WHAT!!!!" he interjected. "you've dived on the Great Barrier Reef?" He was genuinely envious. "WOW!! that's so cool dude" He explained that we would never be able to replicate our experience. I had tasted the best the world has to offer in that respect. I was bound to pursue the un-achievable dream forever more knowing that it was the reef and only the reef that would give me that sense of suspended reality. It was both heart breaking to know there was no more searching to be had but at the same time, the reef was unattainable for the foreseeable future.
On holidays in Bali  a few years back we had decided to visit a new restaurant each night. No two meals were to come from the same kitchen. On night One I ordered a black rice pudding with coconut cream for dessert. It was mind blowing. I have never had it and wondered why I'd wasted 46 years not seeking it out before now. On night 2 at the next restaurant they had it on the dessert menu also. I ordered it of course and was disappointed. Maybe the next night we will strike it lucky again? Alas no, just as the previous night and all the following nights, each restaurant offered an inferior product. I never got to have it again. It was the barrier reef of the rice world.
So many times in life we experience something that changed our lives and continue the search, always trying to recreate that. And we are destined for failure. I wish there was a way to know when the Great Barrier Reef is in front of us. We could just smile and nod, relax into the knowledge that there is no better place on earth than where you are at that particular moment. My great barrier reef experience is now a long way in the distant memory but I still feel it. The temperature of the water, the way the world went silent except for my own breath escaping the mouthpiece and the air rattling around in the tank. I hold out hope of returning to the reef one day but this time knowing I am in heaven. Appreciating it for what it is and giving it the respect it deserves. I might even order some black rice pudding.