Great Barrier Reef

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Everyone has heard of the Great Barrier Reef. A lot of people have been there, so its no surprise that you get a lot of advice about which is the best tour to go on, or the best reef to visit and so on and so forth. The two bits of advice we can offer having been there and bought the T'shirt, is to only go on tours which go to the outer barrier reefs, and make sure you take your camera, oh and don't buy the T shirts : S

We had already snorkeled part of the Gt Barrier Reef in the Whitsundays, but when you're in Cairns you sort of feel obilged to go again. We chose a small operator called Osprey 5, which we booked as part of a package with a days rafting on the Tully River. These packages are offered by every operator and they seem to be much of a muchness. You don't actually save a great deal certainly not as much as the $30 they advertise that you'll save. You're better off just booking direct with the individual tours that are recommended.

We were up bright and early and headed down to the harbour to check in for our day on the reef, who should we bump into but a couple of hungover Croyden Massive boys, Chris & Mark!! The morning started off with rain and cloud and a couple of green faces, but it got calmer the further out to sea we sailed and by the time we arrived at Saxon Reef we even got a few rays of sunshine. We decided that we would snorkel as many people had told us that it was just as good, if not better than the scuba diving. We did have a go on a free 30 minute intro dive, but didn't carry on with it as it wasn't for us, Jo didn't get on with the equalising bit and I was just a bit of a wuss when it came to potentially becoming shark bait!! Even though we just stuck to the snorkeling, between Saxon and Hastings reef, which we visited after lunch, we still ended up seeing a hell of a lot of different beautifuly coloured fish,squid,& coral as well as a couple of sharks! Yes sharks. I'm not sure why but we spotted a white tipped shark at the edge of the reef and whilst Jo froze to the spot franticaly treading water & breathing heavily I went off swimming towards it! We also got to get up and personal again with another Maori Wresse called "Wally', who wasn't as big and scary as "Elvis". Jo and Chris even sat on the back of the boat and fed him by hand. I stood back and took the photos!

The Barrier Reef has so much to offer its fascinating to watch all these strange and wonderfully coloured fish go about their daily routines. It's no wonder it has so many visitors. It really is a shame that it seems to be having problems coping with the amount of tourism. While we have been here in Australia we have seen a couple of news items on how tourism is affecting the coral and even the fish stocks. In particular the plight of the coral cod which have been dying off due to people touching them and removing a thin membrane that protects them from disease. So you divers stop touching the cod......



.......... and no I didn't take all of the photos!! The guy from the boat was in there taking the good ones!! But we did see them all!!

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Photos

Black tip reef shark
Check it out how close!! Elvis was more scary than this fella....

AMPHIPRION PERIDERAION
see I know the latin names!!