Reef of Many Colors

 View from of the Great Barrier Reef from our plane leaving Cairns.

Our last stripe of adventure takes us onto and into the ocean.




The Great Barrier Reef!  

Caroline here...We take a tour with Quicksilver Tours, to the Agincourt Reef,one of almost 3000 reefs and located way out on the outer reef.  The vessel is a huge, multi-level catamaran that seats a couple of hundred people and zooms out over very calm water.  We've ridden up on their bus to Port Douglas and now are ready to depart. Loving this boat! 

 

The reef protects the water and shore inside of it, so there are tiny ripples of 1-2 foot wavelets lolling to shore.  The ocean is level and calm…and hot!  Cairns has been in the 90s each day, even with lots of clouds this morning (we wake to wonder if the reef trip will even take place, dark clouds rising all around). 

 
We reach their permanent docking station, hey pretty cool! And climb aboard. John talks me into signing up for the guided snorkeling tour with the marine biologist.  Turned out to be well worth it, though our "biologist" was quite the character.

The snorkeling is better than expected, way better!  We arrange to go with “marine biologists”, Bio John and Alex, who are very knowledgeable about the reef but probably not actually biologists.  We wear lycra suits to protect against “stingers”, jellyfish.  An added benefit: Caroline looks like Emma Peel or Uma Thurman ala Kill Bill in her zippered body suit.  Masks, snorkels, flippers expertly handled and we are in the water in minutes.

WOW!  Fish are everywhere!  The coral has every color imaginable, even the bleached white of dying coral affected by the environment.  Varying shades of blues and purples, yellows and oranges, every shade you can imagine. There are vanilla-colored brain corals that have grown as large as a living room and pink mushroom coral as small as a plate.  We follow our guide toward very shallow waters and glide so close over the top of the coral that we're afraid we'll scrape our bellies against the staghorn coral.  Since we didn't have an underwater camera, here's some  Google Photos to give you an idea.    


We glide as if we are at the level of a ceiling in a bus, and the coral at the height of people’s heads seated on a bus—that close!  So everything is magnified and beautiful.  Small sea anemones, bright orange with white and black vertical stripes, swirl around in waving coral.  Bright antlers of blue-purple ease by.  We come upon a Giant clam, about the size of a cadillac’s trunk, and when Bio John reaches inside the long wavy opening, the clam closes—pretty slowly!—and reopens.  I can see the living clam “breathing.”  Along the edges of the clam opening are dozens of luminescent “eyes” on a purple background.  Amazing….

Bio John also dives down and hands us purple starfish, sea cucumbers and little pieces of coral. He points out the mated for life yellow butterfly fish that live for 20 years and the little dentist fish that go around cleaning everyone elses'mouths.  He's also messes with us bigtime!  For example he picks up a 6" peace of mullusk maybe, can't remember, tips it on its side and says, " See this mucus running off?  This hasn't been patented yet, but in about 3 years it's going to be put on the market, they've found it to be a very effective sunscreen and aphrodisiac. Here, try some"  I'm thinking, " that sure looks like water to me", but if you're a marine biologist....what the heck let's try it".  And so on...No way this dude is a biologist. I think we were his entertainment... However it was still really fantastic to be up so close to the coral and fish!  Like an underwater garden. 

After snorkeling we ride in the semi-submersable sub with glass sides so we can also see underwater.  We see a giant sea turtle!  Everything has a blueish tint though.  Any pictures of fish etc you see here were taken from the sub.  Here's my favorite shot.  





Then we grab some lunch, a nice buffet with shrimp, salad, fresh fruit... We snorkel one last time before the boat starts to head back around 3ish.                                                           

We see so many different types of fish, some in schools like the Seargent Majors that Caroline keeps calling “Sargent Pepper” fish, white with horizontal black zebra stripes, and in pairs that mate for life—yellow-edged “Butterfly” fish.  I am startled when a brilliantly colored “Parrot” fish suddenly swims right in front of me, so close I can see the scales and every color of the rainbow on its side. 

When we get back to the platform we started from, the guides feed the fish, large ones maybe 30 inches long, 15 inches deep and hungrily “trained” to swarm in for this free and easy meal.  One fish with a cool green color actually comes up out of the water just a foot from me, his mouth gaping open in gasps until he snags a small mackerel tossed to him….a trained “Seal” fish!
I’m still processing all the things we saw out there.  And feeling very lucky to have had the chance to experience one of those great wonders of the world that may be slowly slipping away in these times of environmental distress.


On the catamaran ride back to Port Douglass, we sit outside in the sunshine on the open deck and enjoy feeling the wild win—it is tossing Caroline’s hair everywhere.

 

The sky is even more amazing than the sea on this return trip.  Some low clouds are so flat along the bottom, like an unseen knive cut the clouds from the sea; they float as if posing for a Magritte painting.  Behind the shore rise the “Dividing Range” mountains and behind them tower thunderheads that rise up to cover a quarter of the blue sky.  Wow…                                                  

Back in Cairns we have dinner in town. We find an affordable restaurant, hooray!

Dinner al fresco is Italian pasta and as sip wine and people watch, a man takes a long time (like me!) photographing something on a tree.  I sneakily take his picture, this is just what John does!  





After he ambles on, we go over to see what it is--this amazing flower!