Day 19, Monday, February 22 2010
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To enjoy the Great Barrier Reef from Cairns, we booked ourselves seats on the Passions of Paradise catamaran. Matty had told us that if were going to visit the reef from Cairns, then they would be the best bet, as they were a small bought, but still big enough to bring us to nice places.
So in the morning we headed off to the Reef Fleet Terminal, where we paid our reef taxes and then waited to board the boat. The boat is a nice catamaran, but we had to use the motor as there was not enough winds to do the tour with the sails.
After heading out to see for about 2 hours we came to our first snorkelling place. This was on a tiny island out in the ocean on which thousands of birds were living. This was a protected bird sanctuary, so we were allowed on the island but only on a small little section of it. Snorkelling from the beach we could submerge ourselves into the reef and enjoy a bit of snorkelling. It was very nice. Sadly the reef was not to healthy so a lot of the coral was dead and there were not too many fish, but it was still worth it.
After snorkelling for about an hour we swam back to the boat and after getting a bit dry, lunch was served. It was a nice buffet so there was enough for me to it as well.
After lunch we set off to the next reef. This reef was surrounded by nothing but a coral reef was still right beneath us. There was no Island or beach, just open water. This reef was not healthier than the previous one, but I still managed to spot a white tipped reef shark. It was about 20m away and pretty much deeper and before I could swim around to follow it, it vanished behind a coral wall in the depth.
All in all the snorkelling was worth it, but I would have liked to go more often but we still had lots to do on our agenda, and when we would be sailing on the Whitsundays, we would be able to snorkel some more. It was a fun day and were quite spent after the long day.