More Than Just A Good Barrier Reef, A Great One!

Our last full day on this trip was spent reliving our (relative) youth.  Carol and I were so amazed by our first time ever snorkeling, way back in 1989, because it was the Great Barrier Reef, that we had to do it again.

Reefs

Instead of doing the larger (but still fabulous) Quicksilver reef snorkeling like we did in 1989, I found the smaller Wavelength cruise which takes a max of 46 people (I'm guessing it was 35-40 people for our trip).

More reefs

We went out of Port Douglas, which I thought was a 25 minute drive up North from the resort, but was closer to 35 minutes because the winding road that followed the amazing coastline for most of it.  Although FNQ is tropical, it reminded me of the road both south and north of Kaikoura to see the seals -- hugging the beach, with mountains (of green, not white this time) just to our left (west) as we drove the eastern coastline of the country (Australia this time, not NZ).

Carol spotted a van with the company's logo, or else I'm not sure we have found the office.  We followed the people from the van, and got to the boat with less time to spare than I would have wanted.  However, we did make it, so no problem!

The five pics above weren't taken on our

trip, but are certainly representative of 

the types of marine life we saw.

This WAS taken on our trip. 

 
They advised we take seasickness pills because of the waves, and it was good advice.  I didn't get sick (unlike at LEAST two others), but I felt kind of green as the boat tossed and turned for 1:15 of the the 90 minute trip out to the reef!  Carol, on the other hand, had no problem and is currently considering hiring on to work on some of the Deadliest Catch boats.

Mary/Marian

Carol had a great, lengthy conversation with one of the marine biologists on board -- Mary or Marian (Carol says her name is Marian, which is probably truer than my recollection of "Mary" -- mostly because Carol was closer to her during the conversation and I was fighting not to get seasick).  Anyhow, she is from New Zealand and is working on the boat whilst traveling around Australia.  In the meantime, I wasn't throwing up, so that's a moral victory.

Getting in the water

Once we got to the last 15 minutes of the boat ride out, we were behind the protection of the reefs and the waves were no longer bouncing the boat, and my stomach, around.

Coral

We hit three different reef locations within Opal Reef.  The coral is amazing, as is the fish diversity.  My personal favorite are the giant clams, which are probably 4-5 feet long and several feet high.  Even the dead clams are interesting to look at.

Blue starfish, but that's pretty evident, isn't it?

At the second location, we went out on a guided tour.  Because I was having difficulty with my mask, Carol went out with Kelsey as our guide (another Kiwi, and a friend of Mary's -- or Marian's).  I got out with the second group (Mary).

Giant clam

Mary/Marian swam down to the bottom several times on the tour, including once to show us how shadows cause the giant clams to, um, clam up.  She acted similarly to a fish that might want to eat the clam -- once her shadow was there, the two sides of the clam closed up.

She also brought up a sea cucumber for us to touch, as well as some coral that is not attached to the reef.

At the first reef, Mary said there were probably over 1,000 different types of fish at that reef, and I think I saw a good 600-800 different kinds (I did not count -- it would be as fruitless and hard to keep up as counting sheep in New Zealand!).

After the second stop, we had a lame lunch and an interesting marine life briefing from Mary/Marian. She focused on the different types of coral, and explained the difference between healthy and dying coral, including bleaching.  The bright coloured coral is a sign of an approaching death, which I didn't expect.

Anyhow, all three swims were interesting -- personally I liked the first reef the best, although all three were great.

I had wanted to buy an underwater camera, but since we got the office with no time to spare, I ended up having to buy the memory stick with photos by Kelsey.  So, any underwater photos you see here were taken by her, not by me.  The photos are good, but don't do the marine life diversity justice.

If you haven't been to the Great Barrier Reef, think of the best snorkeling spot you've ever been.  Okay, now that you've done that, it's not even close to the amazing wonderfulness that is the GBR.

The boat ride back from the reef wasn't as bad, because we were going with the wind and waves instead of into them, but there were a number of times it was still quite rough.  At one point, going back up stairs to the second level, the boat pitched violently, and I managed to fall (despite holding on) and badly bruise my right knee.  It's funny -- all the different adventures, and I only get hurt during the snorkel trip -- which you would think would be quite benign!  (In 1989, we went in the summer time, and the water was like glass!).

We got back to resort in time to see the pair of agile wallabies again (I have no idea if they were same two as the day before, but that's what I would bet on).  And, of course, we admired the 6:30 flight of the bats -- 800-1,000 strong.  None of them veered right at us before crashing.  I hope that bat had his radar adjusted!

We had dinner at the resort restaurant, where the food was good.  It's an open air building, and we could listen to the cries of the birds and other wildlife.  The animal/bird noises through the night and early morning were always entertaining (and a little freaky)