Day filled with snorkeling

Saturday, December 17, 2005

Today started out early again as we got up to take a shuttle into downtown Cairns for our trip out to the Great Barrier Reef. The company that the hotel recommended was called Reef Magic Marineworld and he suggested it because they have you stay out in the water about 5 hours, which is 2 hours more than Quicksilver, one of the major companies down here. Once we got to the marina, we paid for our trip and got ready for a 90 minute boat ride out to Marineworld, the huge floating pontoon right next to the reef that we were going to snorkel around. We had intended to do the introductory dive since Tami isn't certified yet, but we found out that you only stay in the water for 20 minutes and you have to lock arms with the dive master. That really seemed like a waste of time and money, so we figured we'd just snorkel instead. Once we got out to Moore Reef, we got our snorkel gear and headed out to the water. It was amazing. All of the different coral and fish that surrounded you. wow. We stayed out for over an hour and came back in to dry off and take a tour on the glass bottom boat where we saw a sea turtle, tons of fish, and some HUGE giant clams.

After the boat ride, we came back in for a nice lunch (where Tami wouldn't eat the prawns again since they were staring at her). After we ate, it was time for the fish. They brought out food for the fish and the fish got really close. We jumped in with our snorkel gear and got really close to them. Their featured fish was Wally, a huge colorful fish that doesn't mind people petting him. Unfortunately, there were too many people around and we didn't get a chance to touch him. oh well.

After the feeding, we headed out for a guided tour of the reef. We saw a lot of things including another sea turtle. Tami even saw a shark, but I missed it. The tour was only supposed to last 50 minutes, but it ended up going 1 hour and 20 minutes instead. Which meant that everyone had already loaded onto the boat to go home and they were waiting for us.... ooops. We quickly got everything packed up and got back on the boat for the 90 minute ride back to Cairns.

After we got back to Cairns, we were pretty tired, so we had the bus drop us off at a shopping center close to our hotel and stopped at one of the cafe's to get supper. We then walked it back to the room and ate there. Then, since we had a handy washer and dryer in the room, we went ahead and did our (hopefully) last load of laundry for the trip. While that was going, we watched a movie and then headed for bed. Tomorrow promises to be relaxing with a late flight to Melbourne.

Greg