On the Great Barrier Reef

Easter is a national holiday here; everyone gets Good Friday and Easter Monday off. So I decided to take advantage of the free, extra long weekend and plan a trip for one of my AU bucket list destinations: the Great Barrier Reef. 

At the marina, excited for our adventure!

Some things I didn't know before starting to plan this trip: the reef is actually a good bit off the coast, so it takes a while to get to by boat - at least an hour for the farther reefs. You also can't just "go" to the reef. The airport closest to the reef is a smallish city called Cairns (pronounced "cans"), and from there you can head farther north to one of the more resort-centered towns, like Palm Cove or Port Douglas. We picked Port Douglas for no other reason than it seemed like a fun little spot with plenty of things for weekend tourists to get into. But the real draw for me was seeing the reef!

Our boat for the day

Unfortunately, I have to preface everything about our reef day with the note that we went out on what the crew called "a pretty rough day." So while the visit to the reef was spectacular, the tone was set for the day by the ride getting wild not too long after we left the marina. People were pitched out of their seats, spray camp up over the second floor of the boat, drinks went flying, and I lost my breakfast all within the first 20 minutes. I spent a good amount of time in the head, barefoot, which should tell you all you need to know about the state I was in. Needless to say, we both felt pretty miserable for the entire seven hours.

Hanging out on the boat sundeck

But even though there aren't many pictures of us smiling, we still did have an amazing experience! It took us about an hour and a half to get out to our first stop, which was called the Three Sisters. The highlight of this spot was seeing a reef shark! He wasn't too big, maybe four feet long, but he looked super cool! He was gone by the time we managed to get in the water, which was both disappointing and reassuring. 

Here are a few of my favorite shots from this spot:  

It's still "stinger season" in Queensland, which is the all-encompassing term for really dangerous, painful jellyfish. Box jellyfish are the most common, but the scariest ones to me are the Irukandji jellyfish. If you want to be permanently scared about entering Australia's waters, you can google Irukandji syndrome - it's the after-effects of a sting, which can kill you off really slowly and painfully. So anyway, we all wore stinger suits, which cover you from head to toe in lycra to protect you from the stings. Here's Toby modeling his: 

We got about an hour in the water at each spot, which went by super fast! I'd read a lot about the coral bleaching in the weeks leading up to our trip, and I was worried about how many colors we'd get to see. While we definitely saw some bleaching - maybe 30% of the color was stark white - for the most part we still saw plenty of colors. I think that the coloring doesn't show up as well in my pictures, especially since it wasn't too sunny for most of the day, but rest assured that the coral wasn't as monochrome as the pics might make it appear!

This second spot, Turtle Bommie, was my least favorite. I was really hoping to see some of the turtles that lived there, but I missed them. Toby saw one swimming around though! The reef there was still amazing, but the current was pretty strong, so we had to fight hard to keep from getting blown out from the reef.    

Last stop was Castle Rock, which was my favorite of the day! The sun was shining more than it had been all day, so the colors were really vivid! And the main reef bit we explored was pretty near the surface so it was easy to get up close and personal to the fishes. It was a perfect way to end the day! 

The view of Castle Rock from the boat

Then we stuffed ourselves with Dramamine for the ride back to the harbor, and dozed through most of the trip. We were happy to be back on dry land, but also so happy we'd had the experience of a lifetime!    

If you're interested, here's a video I've put together with some actual clips from our GoPro filming. Enjoy!