Cairns & The Great Barrier Reef

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Originally uploaded by theslaad.

We drove up to Cairns on Friday the 29th. It was another long journey, about 600km, but there didn't seem like there was much to do in between Airlie Beach and Cairns so it was worth the long stint. The area around Cairns is called the Wet tropics. We found that name very apt as for most of journey it was pissing it down with rain!
We found ourselves a quite nice campsite within walking distance from the city centre and cooked up some grub and had a few cold ones.

For our trip to the Barrier Reef we decided to go with a company that visits reefs different to most other companies. We hoped that by spending the extra cash it would avoid there being a pontoon so the reef is less damaged and there would be more to see. It was good as when we were at the different parts of reef there was only one other boat and we didn't bump into anyone from there.

We were picked up from our campsite and taken to marina where it felt a bit airport like, checking everyone on to the various boats. We filled in a couple of disclaimers and then were on our way. Unfortunately the wind was quite high that day and the catamaran went pretty fast so a few people looked quite green by the time we got to our first site, Chris included.
After torrential rain all night, the clouds parted and we had a bright clear day. Looking forward to our once in a life time snork & dive off the Great Barrier Reef we got straight to it and had a look around. It was amazing! There's so many different types of coral, beautiful colours and shapes. Chris was lucky enough to see a couple of reef sharks (harmless nice fellas) and I got quite excited over some nice nemos with blue stripes. It was a bit crowded with divers as they all swam around a bommie and a few times I got a bit close to other snorks for my liking, but we definitely made the right choice to go to a reef that was further out than others. Whilst we were on the sun deck listening to a reef talk we saw a Green turlte coming up for air - very cool.
The second & third sites were also pretty cool with more fish and coral to be explored. Amongst all the cool stuff we saw, there were a few enormous parrot fish and I think I saw a Maori Wrasse, and Chris saw a black spotted puffer fish and played with a sea cucumber. It was a very well run boat with a slap up lunch and afternoon tea and quite proffessional staff reminding people that it's up to a $20,000 fine for taking anything from the reef.

I was officially a doofus on the trip though and am now not to be trusted (with anything). I took our nice waterproof camera snorkling and took some nice pics, but when the battery ran out and I changed it I forgot to lock the case, hence when I got out of the sea later on and a wave bashed me the door came open and water went in. Oops...
It still mostly works, except for the flash, which probably won't ever work again. We've bought a disposable camera as a backup just in case but it seems to be ok. Luckily I didn't get too told off.