The boy loves to snorkel. I think he might be part fish, which probably explains why he never eats the delicious shrimp and lobster and mahi… So obviously we were going out on the Great Barrier Reef while in Cairns. The problem came with finding someone to take us… [Ed. note: I don’t like to eat seafood. I just like to look at them swimming about.]

We were pretty lazy with our igloo. The lure of a quiet beach, a cold drink, and the ability to walk to the bar on the corner for dinner when the sun went down kept us home bound for the first few days. So once we started realizing we needed to book someone to take us out snorkeling on Monday morning, it was 7 pm on Sunday night. We figured it would be fine. There were lots of companies up and down the coast and our beach was basically empty every day so it probably wasn’t tourist season yet even though it was summer here. we got up the next morning at 6 am and drove an hour to the marina of the company we picked out online. We stood outside the door before they opened and then we found out they were booked…solid…for the next 5 days and we left in 4! Well, shit. [Ed. note: Waking up early multiple days in a row really wasn’t the best beach-bum plan.]

Luckily, while they were booked for the (probably cooler) outer reef tour, they did have 2 seats left on the inner reef tour the next morning she could lock me into right now.   Done, we’ll just head back to the beach now for a nap in anticipation of another early morning and not miss out!  Except that the next morning dawned early and rainy.   Stormy actually. It poured for part of our windy coastal drive back up to Port Douglas and the angry looming clouds along the horizon didn’t disappear as we kept telling ourselves they would. Well, we’d be wet in the water anyway…although if it actually stormed I’m not so sure how our ability to swim would be effected…[Ed. note: a storm would choppy water, a possible stronger current, limited visibility, possibly colder water, with a high chance of cancellation of snorkeling. All bad news.]

Whatever, you can’t come to North Queensland and miss out on spending some time on the Great Barrier Reef—it seems almost criminal!  We grabbed our stinger suits to protect agains the rampant jellyfish we were about to encounter and strapped into our boat.   Yes, strapped in.   See the allure of this particular company came in part due to the 14 seater speedboats they used.   These race car seats with major seatbelt were necessary as the boat went over 80 kmph to get you as far out on the reef as possible for a short few hour tour.  We zoomed through the wake and quite literally held onto our hats for 15 minutes and then we were in the reef! [Ed. note: with sun!]

I was the first off the boat to take the plunge in…and then the last to swim away out to see the sights because once I was about 30 feet out from the boat, my flipper came completely undone and I was trying to thread water and holler at my husband to come back while also attempting to fix the fin so I could keep swimming!   Unfortunately, my husband was very busy reacquainting himself with his long lost friends to pull his face back above water…[Ed. note: I honestly had no idea about this until she typed this up and I read it. The coral really was sweet.]

The reef itself was stunning.   We found Nemo and all his aquatic friends along the way, including an amazing blue starfish.   We had about an hour and a half to explore any part we wanted and I swam until the water temperature from the impending storm finally had my teeth chattering too hard to swim anymore and had to retreat to the boat! [Ed. note: the water did begin to get a bit chillier than the Coral Sea may initially have you believe…]

I’m so glad our lack of planning here didn’t completely ruin our day trip because seeing the reef in person was absolutely stunning.   I’ve been snorkeling a lot on reefs in the Caribbean and also off the coast of Zanzibar [Ed. note: and the Maldives…] but I’ve never seen so many types of coral and such beautiful colors of coral in one place!