Great Barrier Reef

Today, I snorkelled in the Great Barrier Reef.

There are countless tour operators running boats to the reef. I went with SilverSwift. They have a fast boat, and maximum of 70 people. Today, we had 52.

It takes 1:15 to get out to the reef. The water was choppy. Five or six people were puking! That’s 10% of the group! I was not puking.

Snorkelling the reef is great! It is also very easy. The boat anchors close to the reef. The water over the reef can be less than one metre deep, so you can get some very close views.

Over half of the group was scuba diving. Most were certified, but the tour also had an “introductory dive” for new people.

However, I found that snorkelling was perfectly sufficient, in this case. I did not need to bother with the hassle and cost of learning to dive. I was also able to dive around three metres with the snorkel.

We stopped at three places, and had between 45 minutes and one hour to explore. The time goes very quickly!

At the last location, one of the crew did a 30 minute “snorkel tour”, in which she dove for a Sea Cucumber so we could hold it, pointed out a Giant Clam, and showed which corals we could touch without causing harm.

I don’t have an underwater camera, so no photos. The above-water photos are not terribly interesting.