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Published: January 24th 2006
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On the Great Barrier Reef
Some fish that were following our semi-submersible. I think they thought we were it's "momma". lol Great Barrier Reef
Started sunny. Ended wet.
Lots of fish to see.
I took a day tour out to the Reef today and the weather started out nice and sunny and very promising for a good day out on the reef. Whoo hoo! It was especially nice to see the sun out since it was raining last night. I walked the couple of blocks to the Reef Fleet Terminal to catch my Catamaran that would take me out to the Great Adventures Pontoon. The waters were a little rough and choppy because of the winds but lucky for me I didn't experience any motion sickness. Not so lucky for some others. The crew were all handing out lots of motion sickness pills.
There were lots of families on board but I was able to find a seat by a couple with their three year old daughter. I chatted them up a bit and found out they were vacationing up North and taking a break from the cold of Melbourne. Their three year was really cute and a bit on the shy side but I had making faces with her all the while talking with her parents.
I also met Ray and Leanne from Brisbane who were up in Cairns to celebrate Leanne's birthday. The three day trip was a big surprise from Ray. They've apparently been married for 30 years. We had an entertaining time watching all of the people that kept on insisting on getting up and trying to walk around the rocky catamaran. I don't know why some people just cannot stay seated!
Half way through the trip we stopped off at Green Island to drop off some people and pick some passengers up. This is where the crew have to do a crucial head count to make sure they don't leave anyone behind. It must have been so frustrating for the staff to have to keep asking people to stay seated for the next five minutes while the head count is being performed. It was kind of funny watching them do the headcount because two crew members each had one of those people counters in their hands counting the passengers but when they walked by it just looked like they were randomly pressing the counter...like they weren't counting at all. I assume they knew what they were doing and that both people had the same number at least two of the three times. 😊
Once the head count was complete we headed off for the Pontoon. At the Pontoon there were quite a few activities to partake. First up for me was to get onto the semi-submersible to check out the Reef. It sort of reminded me of the submarine ride at Disneyland. The waters were a bit cloudy but we were able to see lots of fishies, coral and other sealife. I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a small stingray and a turtle. By the time we got to the Pontoon the weather was quite overcast. If it had been sunny I'm guessing the waters would have been much clearer. There were quite a few larger fish that were following the Semi-Submersible around as we cruised around the waters and I was wondering if they thought the Semi-Sub was their mother. lol We were out there for about 20 to 25 minutes.
There was a huge line up at the lunch buffet so I decided to wait a bit before lining up myself and checked out what was going on with the snorkellers. The waters were pretty rough but everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. They have these cool underwater scooters you can rent and there were actually a couple of people that shelled out the $130/hour to use them! I also checked out the underwater observatory and saw some of the scuba divers getting ready for their dives under the sea. By this time I figured the buffet queue should have died down.
There was still a bit of a line up but only about 8 people ahead of me so I decided to line up and get some food into me. I had some really good rice, curry, potato, veggies and ham plus salads, prawns and tons of really good fruit. So I was pretty well fed! I happened to see Ray and Leanne coming out of the water from snorkelling and we had lunch together. After consuming mass quantities of food for lunch we lounged around on the sundeck for a bit before heading over the semi-submersible (since Ray and Leanne didn't go on yet.) I decided to join them again to see what else I could see of the Reef and the fact that there wasn't much else to do...so why not! We were getting a little chilly and thought we'd go back onto the catamaran to secure some seats inside. Boy the air conditioning was turned way up...It's colder inside than outside. So we decided to secure ourselves some seats outside. Of course we helped ourselves to some dessert of chocolate cake and pineapple/banana cake. So moist...just like Betty Crocker or Duncan Hines! Yum!
From the outside deck we could see the helicopter landing area on the water. Surprisingly there were quite a few people taking helicopter rides over the Reef. I'm not sure how much they were able to see of the Reef on such a cloudy day but I guess being in a helicopter must have been an exciting enough experience. The ride home was even rougher then the morning ride. So rough that the waves were crashing up onto the upper deck and getting us really, really wet! It was all quite humourous really. Thank goodness Ray and Leanne had some huge towels that we used to help keep the spray off of us otherwise we probably would have been drenched! It actually was quite cool watching the waves and huge sprays of mist coming onto the sides of the catamaran. It didn't last too long so we decided to ride out the "showers" of sea water instead of heading to the cold arctic air of inside. Plus we were rather amused by our fellow passengers again that insisted on getting up and walking about the catamaran. Oh people watching can be oh so entertaining!
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