No pictures could have prepared us, nor words described, the absolute beauty of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Early Sunday morning we boarded a catamaran at the marina. We covered the 20 miles or so to the reef in about an hour and transferred to a larger cat, 'Reef Encounter', our platform for snorkeling, eating, and sleeping for the next 24 hours. It was a sort of very small cruise ship focused on diving and snorkeling, with a friendly staff and some great hearty meals - these people really understand the kind of energy cooked off swimming 4 hours a day!
Over Sunday and Monday, we snorkeled seven different times at four reef locations including Saxon Reef, Norman Reef, Hastings Reef, and (we think...) Michaelmas Reef. We took so many pictures that we killed the camera battery after the first four swims; some are posted in this Picasa album . We also took a short video (the colors aren't true - our camera's 'underwater mode' doesn't work for video), but you can still get an idea of the number and variety of fish and coral (Insert Link). The Norman and Saxon reefs are on the "outer reef", at least relative to the majority of tours from Cairns, and they were the most colorful and lively. Our ship anchored at Norman reef for the night, and we snorkeled at dawn Monday morning. The reef was very alive as the fish welcomed the early light with a flurry of swimming to and fro across the reef.
We saw giant clams, the size of our dining table, which would retract parts of their photosynthetic surface each time we swam close enough to block the sunlight. The reefs were absolutely thriving with coral and fish of every shape, size, and color! To quote one of the crew who took us on a glass boat tour, the spectacular jumbles of coral build up because "It's an absolute war down there. A very, very slow-moving war"; in reference to the way each coral appears to fight for each ray of sunlight.
We hunted around for 'Nemo', the elusive true clownfish. At our fourth and final reef of the day, after seeing at least 3 other varieties of clownfish, we finally caught a glimpse of a 'family' of these guys in a very hairy anemone. We were able to dive right down close, within about 1 meter, and watch them play. The clownfish is orange, sometimes black, with semi-phosphorescent white stripes on it's sides. It has a symbiotic relationship with poisonous sea anemones (the method of avoiding/resisting poison is debated...), so we had to stumble across the right types of anemone and watch for the fish to poke their heads out!
We swam with schools of parrotfish, a turquoise-and-sometimes-pink reef dweller equipped with a beak-like mouth with which it eats the coral of the reef; diving underwater a few meters to clear the sound of the surface chop, we could actually hear them chomping away! Speaking of chomping, we saw a bunch of sharks over the side of the boat at night while the scuba divers prepped for their night dive (we didn't scuba). They hide in deep dark places during the day, and are attracted to waste heat from the ship's galley at night. This brand of reef shark is supposed to be non-aggressive toward humans, but we overheard the night-dive instructor briefing the divers on how to distract the sharks with a light when one is getting too close (something about shining your torch on a diver you don't like...).
We enjoyed meeting and learning about our fellow passengers, some of whom hailed from nearby in Washington and B.C., and many from Europe and the UK. After so long in places where very few people spoke English, it was
really nice to get to know some other travelers (just a little bit, unfortunately), hear their stories, learn a little about their lives, why they travel, and to share notes on places we had been or have yet to visit.We are pretty worn out from all the swimming and excitement, and are looking forward to "de-salting" and relaxing a bit, hopefully over a fine sunset and a glass of delicious Australian wine!
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