We hopped on an early cruise ship to a pontoon in the great barrier reef. The ship and experience was very different from the Whitsunday cruise from the day before. It was a hard sell - photo packs, helicopter tours and scuba diving lessons were pushed hard. They were even in chinese! There were also many more people on board so more of a battery hen experience. I know, first world problems. And we had to get up early!
The reef is actually many small reefs instead of just one big one. It was one of these which we sighted first as a light green band between the dark ocean blue and the horizon. The pontoon is just a few rooms and a deck in the middle of the reefs. There were also small pontoons for helicopter tours to land which was pretty cool.
We took a glass bottomed boat around the reef when we first arrived which wasn't great. Half the time it pointed us out to sea the other half we were too far away from the reef. We figure that this is only for the surprisingly high number of people that don't snorkel.
We ate a nice lunch then headed out for a guided snorkel that came with our package. The two staff with us were great but the parents of the young family along with us kept getting in front of us, kicking us in the face and the like. Not ideal, but the male guide with us took our go pro down free diving to look for 'finding nemo' fish which was good.
Snorkeling by ourselves in the designated areas was great. The reef is so imposing and colourful. Each pass over it you get to see different brightly coloured and patterned fish up close.
The funniest moment was when we broke the surface, chatted about doing another pass of the reef, then kirren put her face down only to come back up shreiking because fish had swarmed around us whilst we'd been talking.
After an all too short hour snorkeling we got back on board just in time to see a turtle.
On the way back we saw the catamaran that we'd cruised the whitsunday islands in the day before and the weekly boat race just outside airlie beach.
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