Tuesday, August 31, 2010

The Great Barrier Reef



Snorkelling on the Reef has got to be one of the best things I’ve ever done. You really can’t appreciate the beauty of it until you see it for yourself. There are so many different types of fish and coral all combined in this magical underwater rainbow wonderland.
We jumped on a boat in Cairns and headed out to Moore Reef, which took about 90 minutes. Unfortunately we picked a windy day with a fairly decent sized swell, resulting in LOTS of sea sickness onboard! We were ok but Indi had a bit of a chuck in the last 10 minutes of the trip. I think Keanu might have felt a bit nauseous but he fell asleep about 30 minutes in so he was fine when we got out there. There wasn’t too many people on the boat--about 60 I think--and I reckon about 50 of them spent the majority of the ride with their heads in paper bags!
The company we choose to go with have a big floating pontoon on the reef. It’s great with little kids; they have a little swimming area for kids and an underwater observatory area and a semi-submersible boat that takes you around the reef. Lots of things to amuse the non-swimmers! Craig and I took turns looking after Keanu on board or in the swimming area while the other snorkelled with Indi.


Indi was AMAZING. She’d used a snorkel in the pool last summer but she kept saying she forgot how to do it. Well, she was wrong. She could hardly wait to get in the water and once she was in there was no stopping her! 


It was so funny snorkelling alongside her; at first she couldn’t keep her head down for more than a few seconds because every time she saw something exciting she’d stick her head up and tell everyone! Then she realised she could talk underwater, so she was babbling her head off while we were swimming around. 


This is ‘Wally’ the Maori Wrasse. He is pretty friendly; he comes right up to the surface and  he lets people pat him on the back. 




It was pretty rough out there for most of the day; big swell kept washing over us and filling our snorkells with water and the current was fairly strong but Indi spent a good couple of hours in the water throughout the day. Needless to say, she slept like a log last night! The first thing she said when she got up this morning was 'Mum can we go snorkelling again?'


Despite the rough water and overcast weather, it was an awesome day. There really is nothing like it. We've even been considering doing a dive course when we get home so next time we can scuba and see even more (and yes, there will be a next time!)

3 comments:

Cords said...

AWESOME! Visiting some sort of reef is definatley a must do thing for anyone. It looks so lovely and blue and the photos are amazing. LOL about Indi talking underwater. ;)

karisma said...

AWESOME! Wow! Great pictures! I can just imagine Indi talking underwater, so funny!

Anonymous said...

Indi is AMAZING! Go girl!

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