Australia Overland—Day Four—Thursday, March 1, 2012
We were so excited about seeing and snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef we could hardly sleep last night. The day dawned overcast and rainy, we’re getting used to the weather, and it is after all, the rainy season. After a delicious breakfast we were collected by Quicksilver, the largest operator of reef trips operating out of Port Douglas, located one hour up the coast north of Cairns.
The Great Barrier Reef is one of Mother Nature’s greatest masterpieces, a collage of colorful marine life that extends 1243 miles along Australia’s coast. It is a living organism, the world’s largest living structure, about half the size of Texas. The reef’s basic life form is coral, which comes in all shapes, sizes and colors of the rainbow.
At the Port Douglas Marina we boarded a technologically advanced 121 foot Quicksilver Wavepiercer vessel. This superb vessel can cruise at a fast 32 mph and gave a very smooth ride to the reef. Our destination was Agincourt reef, which lies within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and World Heritage area. It is the only ribbon reef on the very outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef to be visited by a day cruise. It took us 1 ½ hours on this very fast vessel to reach our destination. At the reef is a two-story pontoon, the base for snorkeling, a semi-submersible ride, scuba diving, helmet dives and helicopter flight seeing. Also we received an informative reef presentation by a Marine Biologist and could access an underwater observatory to view the many varieties of fish and coral.
Deciding we were going to snorkel, the staff suggested that everyone wear wet suits, necessary to purchase for an additional $5, to keep you from being stung by jelly fish. Needless to say, we were lovely but the suits did help to keep us warm as we spent hours in the water!
We saw royal blue coral and many more beautiful colors of coral and so many tropical fish, turtles and mollusks. It was a day we will never forget!
