Trip to Moore Reef and Wally Wrasse

After the last two fairly overcast days, today started with a magically beautiful sunrise featured in the main from my hotel room balcony.

Much of the rest of the day wasn't great for photos without an underwater camera but the extra shows the sea colours and a breaking wave as we approached Moore Reef.

I wish I had a photo of the most magical moment but I don't - I was having my very first go at snorkelling and was resting on one of the tethered floating frames when some scuba divers passed under me (not the magical bit yet) and then the last of them indicated something to me with a hand signal. I thought he was just being polite and making sure I knew he was there but what he meant was that a huge humphead wrasse was about to pass underneath me. The scuba diver was photographing the wrasse (called Wally as he's a regular) and I found myself trying to move my legs out of the beautiful creature's way so I wouldn't bump him. He was there for a while, right under and next to me and it was just amazing! He was probably close to two metres long, wonderfully patterned with blue and his eyes seemed to be on short stalks!!! I can't say I felt too confident about snorkelling but this amazing close encounter was an incentive to improve!!! (I did try scuba diving about 25 years ago but I was hopeless.)