Snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef

Tuesday 26^th August 2014

Going on a boat to Moore Reef today and we have to be on the dock around 10am, so no need to get up too early. Just as well. I had a bad night last night, I don’t think the local water agrees with me. Nuff said. We sit in the Reception area and we can see the boat as soon as it rounds the headland from Cairns. It takes about 20 minutes to arrive and dock. A crew member, Eddie, is there to meet us, he helped us with our luggage yesterday and is full of very useful information. All the crew on this Sunlover tour are terrific and really couldn’t be more helpful. We’re booked to do a guided snorkel tour and Ollie will be our guide. We meet early and fine tune our plans. There’s around 80 people on the boat today and it’s the smaller of the company’s 2 boats, but not noticeably so. There doesn’t seem to be as many sick people either, although it is a bit calmer out on the water today compared to yesterday.

We arrive at the Sunlover pontoon and it’s not as big as I’d expected, certainly not as big as the Quiksilver one we took the kids on from Port Douglas all those years ago. 140 people would have been quite a crowd yesterday. Ollie has inspected our masks and snorkels and rates our snorkels, but our masks are crap, they fog up too easily. He tells us we should use the ones on board. Apparently our masks still have a silicone layer on the inside which is there to prevent scratching but impedes vision. Pro divers burn it off with a cigarette lighter but Ollie doesn’t have one so he can’t fix them for us. Talking about it later to Eddie and he says he burns his masks but would never burn anyone else's. He tells us that a good rubbing with some Jif will do a similar job and when we’re leaving, he gives us a squirt in a paper cup. We can’t wait to get out and snorkel on the reef, and while there’s plenty of fish, the coral is looking a bit well-loved. We probably swam around for about half an hour before lunch was ready, we needed to eat reasonably early because our booking was for 1.10pm. Lunch was decent, I had read complaints during my research, but really, anyone who complained has never been hungry or visited a developing country.

The snorkel tour was well worth the extra $40pp, Ollie took us outside the general snorkel area to parts of the reef that were much more colourful and more what we had hoped for. Wetsuits were included in the price which helped keep us warm and added buoyancy. The time passed so quickly. He towed us around on a life-ring, we had to paddle as well, but I’m sure he put in more effort than we did! He took us over a shallower part which was amazing too, we were so close to the coral. The fish were interesting too, so many in some parts, they were brushing all over our arms and legs. He stopped every now and then to show us something or tell us something interesting. There are metal stakes driven in to the sea floor to measure coral growth against and UNESCO is considering giving the entire Great Barrier Reef an endangered listing. Pretty sad state of affairs when our own Governments (State and Federal) aren’t really playing their part to protect it.

I’ve never been vain enough to say I want to look good in a bikini, but now, hmmm, I wouldn’t mind losing a bit of weight so I don’t look like a convoluted black sausage in a wetsuit!! There is no photo. Trust me - that's a good thing!

Trevor helped rescue a lady (I’m sorry, I have to say it – she was an Asian lady) who somehow got caught up on one of the resting pontoons while she was attempting to get out of the water. I’m not quite sure what happened or how it happened, but one of the lifeguards came rushing in to help and gave Trevor a pat on the back when the crisis had been averted.

I stayed in a bit longer and saw some fish I’d never seen before. Talking to Ollie later he said one sounded like a juvenile Many Spotted Sweet Lips, sounded like he said Mini spotted, but that was just his Kiwi accent, LOL!! And the other fish was a camouflage grouper. The fish were quite amazing, the coral was a bit ordinary close to the pontoon, I think it must be the effect of sunblock lotions and the like because it’s too deep to have been walked on and damaged. The snorkelling area was quite large and the further away from the pontoon you went, the more colourful the coral was. All in all, it was a great day out and something we’ll do again when we’re back this way. Of course if you could book on a ‘quiet’ day it would be even better. I can’t imagine how it would be with twice as many people on the pontoon. And we made it back to Fitzroy with 10 minutes to spare before Happy Hour at Foxy’s!

Dinner at Zephyr’s tonight was buffet style with seafood - oysters and Moreton Bay bugs. It was hilarious watching people attempting to get the meat out of a bug with cutlery. For goodness sakes people!! If it was a prawn you’d use your hands wouldn’t you?! We didn’t hold back, or should I say, Trevor didn’t hold back, shelling bug meat like there was no tomorrow! Yummo! We probably had about 6-8 between us. I wasn’t as keen on the oysters, but Trevor enjoyed them. The rest of the buffet was pretty tasty too. The pace of life is great, there’s no rush to do anything or get anywhere, so meals are especially leisurely.