Great Barrier Reef

Thursday June 22nd – Today was the Great Barrier Reef day. We got up early and ate breakfast at our hotel where they actually served brewed coffee! Now I know this is disgusting to all the Aussies reading this, but we Americans love our brewed coffee! So after a satisfying breaky we were picked up by an enormous bus which transported us about an hour north to the town of Port Douglas. The weather was pretty poor with light rain and wind but we hoped it would clear later. Remember how our hotel had helped us chose the activities for our time in Cairns? Well, there are many trips to the reef to choose from and many companies. The biggest decision (beyond which company to go with) is going to the inner or outer reef. We chose a company named Quicksliver for our reef experience and chose to go to the outer reef. Apparently the outer reef tends to have better color of coral and more diversity of marine life as the outer reef gets more nutrients from the open ocean. The disadvantage to going to the outer reef for a day is that a good chuck of your time on the reef includes the travel time to get there. You can also choose to dive or snorkel ‘off the boat’ or go with a larger trip where the boat docks to a permanent pontoon, which is like a small floating city. As I was a little nervous about the whole adventure (remember the shark thing?) I wanted to be near something large and stable so we opted for the pontoon. This way if they ‘accidentally’ left without me, like the movie “Open Water”, I would have somewhere to go to get away from the sharks. The disadvantage here is the number of people you go with. Once we arrived in Port Douglas we boarded a gigantic catamaran for the 1 ½ ride to Agincourt Reef. The boat was probably 80 feet long and could hold about 450 people! Thankfully it wasn’t completely full but were about 300 folks onboard.Our bus driver had warned us that there was a strong wind advisory and because of the weather forecast the company was offering to rebook people to another time. This made us a bit nervous but as this was the only day we had we decided to chance it. I had taken my seasick medicine and just hoped for the best. The sea was pretty rough and even in our big boat it was fairly violent. They kept advising people over the loudspeaker to hold onto things while moving around on the boat. Finally we arrived at the pontoon which had an underwater observatory which was cool. We had rented lycra suits as the crew had spotted a few jellyfish the day before. The suits covered you from head to toe and if a jelly touched the suit you wouldn’t receive a sting. Grant suited up and jumped in to begin snorkeling right away. I was a bit more cautious (nervous), and spent a few minutes giving myself a pep talk and convincing myself that I would not, in fact, be eaten by a shark. After yelling myself that this is what I had come out here for and I should just get in, I finally did. I hyperventilated just a bit, found Grant, swam directly to him, and gripped his hand like a vice. He was pretty good natured about this of course and hung out with me over the shallower parts of the reef where I felt more comfortable. After a while I began to enjoy what I was seeing. The fish are really incredible but the coral was not as brightly colored as I had expected. This may have been due to the overcast conditions, or just the heavily trafficked area we were in. After about 40 minutes we headed in for lunch which was delicious. After lunch we decided to go on the guided snorkeling tour led by the marine biologist. He took about 15 of us on a boat about a mile away from the pontoon and pointed out various fish and types of coral. We were out for about an hour before heading back to the pontoon where it was time to head back to land. Another rough passage but we made in to shore, boarded the bus and drove back to Cairns. As you can guess, we slept well that night!