Brilliant Day

It was up reasonably early this morning, as we were getting picked up at 0840, to be taken to the marina for our trip to the Great Barrier Reef. The weather was lovely with some early clouds quickly disappearing to reveal lovely blue sky. The temperature was in the low thirties, much as it has been since we arrived in Port Douglas.

The boat we went out on was the twin engined catamaran 'Calypso', which had a crew of 8 for about 30 passengers. Even although it skimmed over the water at a good speed it still took an hour and a half to get to the first dive site. I say dive, but me and Mrs B along with most of the others were only going to snorkel The crew were excellent and there was a very thorough briefing that left nothing to chance. Slightly disconcerting to be told that there were sharks about the reef, even if they were allegedly harmless! Even more worrying, we were all to wear lycra wet suits to prevent being stung by a Stinger (now there's an original name for a jellyfish that stings!). Head and hands were also covered before we jumped in.

First in were the divers who were split into experienced and beginners groups. Then it was our turn and we all started swimming to the reef about 20 metres from where the boat was moored.. The sight of so many tropical fish swimming within feet of you is simply amazing. All sizes from little blue Neons up to those sharks I mentioned. Unfortunately, neither of us saw any White Tipped Sharks or Turtles that some of the others witnessed.. However, this was more than made up for by the tremendous variety of fish we encountered. The different kinds of corrals were also fascinating, as was the talk given by one of the crew in between dives.

After lunch we went for our third and last snorkel on the third site we visited. By this time our confidence was high and nobody seemed to want to leave the water. However, the crew have a clever way of getting you back to the boat - they threw some food off the stern of the boat and in no time a shoal of large Red Bass appeared and indulged in something of a feeding frenzy, with some of them almost jumping out of the water. All this activity soon had us snorkelers back at the boat and amongst all the fish. What a great way to end our time in the water.!

By the time we got back to Port Douglas we had been at sea for over 7 hours and ready for a drink. They think of everything here, at the end of the gangway was a bar with a special 'sundowner' offer of a beer and a poke of prawns for $11. Now who could resist that? Well, certainly not me. All in all a brilliant day out and a wonderful experience, with one more thing ticked off the list of things to do before you die!

As we headed back to the hotel, the sun was setting over the harbour and I just couldn't resist making it my blip of the day. A perfect end to a perfect day! The Calypso is the vessel the setting sun is reflecting off on the right.

Having internet connection problems so links to boat blips not possible at present!