On Tuesday, we had a trip planned to the Great Barrier Reef. We chose a smaller company, where they would take up to 30 of us out...there are several companies that will take between 300 - 400 people out to snorkel and tie up to a permanent structure out on the reef, complete with a restaurant, cafe, bathrooms, and a bar. Considering that we had to pay an "environmental" fee to help pay to repair/continue growing the reef, a permanent structure had us feeling a little weird...so small boat it was!
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| Our boat and Skipper John |
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| Out on the open ocean. |
There were 29 snorkelers, a marine biologist, a deck hand, and the skipper and we set out on an all day cruise. We would stop at three different places on the reef - Turtle Bay, Seagull and SNO (not sure what that stands for), and they were all on the outer reef.
Because it was stinger season, we had to wear full-on lycra suits, from head to toe. It was...something.
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| Rockin' our lycra suits. |
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| My best ninja pose. |
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| "What Up, Fishes." |
Outside of the lycra suits, it was so cool. Our favorite spot was SNO, which was somewhat unfortunate, as our camera battery died, and we had to leave sooner than we had planned because there was a huge storm between us and shore...but, it was awesome.
We saw lots of fish, a couple of sharks (though Jeff didn't realize they were sharks), and all kinds of weird and interesting hard and soft coral. We were pretty bummed that we didn't get to see any turtles, but we now have a reason to come back!
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| Giant Clam. |
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| Turtle Bay. |
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| Bowl in SNO. |
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| Bowl in SNO. |
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| White Tipped Reef Shark. |
There was a point on the trip out to the reef that I got a little nervous - the captain went down to the engine room, then came up with noise-cancelling headphones on, asking the deck hand to do different things with the throttle, including completely turning the boat off...but we made it out and back safe and sound.
Tomorrow we head out on a Daintree Rainforest tour with Pete. Pete is so Australian that I only understand every third word or so...stay tuned!
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