Great Barrier Reef

I spent a week in Cairns (pronounced more or less like “cans”) in the north of Australia. It was entirely different from Tasmania, where on a cruise I’ve seen a penguin in the cold waters. It’s hot and tropical at about 16 degrees south latitude – the closest I’ve ever been to the equator. I stepped off the plane at 7 pm, and it was a humid 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cairns uses the motto, “Where the reef meets the rainforest.” It is, tour guides and promotional websites like to point out, the only place in the world where two World Heritage areas are so close to each other. My first full day in Cairns was devoted to the better known of the two, the Great Barrier Reef.

The Great Barrier Reef stretches over 1,600 miles north-to-south off the coast of the Australian state of Queensland. It falls under the management of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, to which day visitors must pay an AU$10 reef tax. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, I was told on my tour, is larger than the United Kingdom! It can apparently be seen from outer space.

Because of its international airport, Cairns is the most popular place to visit the Great Barrier Reef. A plethora of companies offer tours; from budget tours to the more expensive variety which include champagne on the return trip, the options are bewildering. I chose tour company Passions of Paradise for my excursion. This was an affordable (AU$125) but quality day tour and I enjoyed it immensely.

The boats taking tourists out to the Great Barrier Reef are collectively known as the “Reef Fleet,” and there are buses that will pick people up from the many hotels and motels and drop them off at the Reef Fleet Terminal, then bring them back to their accommodation later. There were hundreds of people when I arrived at the Reef Fleet Terminal. It was the tail end of the major tourist season, as the wet season starts November 1st and torrential downpours naturally deter a lot of visitors. I had an ideal day: blue sky with only fluffy, non-threatening clouds, a slight breeze but nothing to stir up the water and make huge waves, water that was in the high 70s Fahrenheit and air just a few degrees warmer.

Everyone was assigned a number for the day, which was used to ensure that everyone returned from both of the snorkel/dive sites (twice in the last ten years certified divers who went off on their own have been left behind; the film “Open Water” was inspired by the 1998 disappearance of an American couple and in May of this year two divers survived being forgotten). I felt safe knowing that I would check in with my number and didn’t have to worry about an inaccurate headcount. Then we headed out to sea, a trip that took roughly an hour and a half. On the way they held introductory diving and introductory snorkel information sessions. Some people chose to take an introductory dive, which is closely supervised, while certified scuba divers could go off on their own. I stuck with snorkeling and spent the extra money diving would have cost on renting an underwater digital camera, which allowed me to take pictures left, right, and center.

Our first site was Michaelmas Cay, a small sand island that’s also a bird sanctuary. This means most of the island was roped off, but I wanted to be in the water anyway. I don’t understand the people who took the little transfer boat out and sprawled on the beach to sunbathe, while fish and coral were just waiting to be explored in the impossibly clear water. This fairly shallow spot was a great place to start snorkeling. For a couple of minutes I was a little jumpy because the fish and coral are really close, but it was so beautiful that didn’t last long. Although I did later get quite a shock when a batfish, about the size of a dinner plate, nearly careened into me. I think I was more startled than the batfish.

Incidentally, it’s illegal to remove anything from the Great Barrier Reef and taking a piece of coral can earn you a fine of AU$7,500. We were informed on the boat that some coral grows only 1 centimeter, or less than half an inch, per year. With the thousands of tourists who go out every day, I can see why the heavy fine is used as a deterrent – otherwise the Great Barrier Reef would shrink daily.

Snorkeling around Michaelmas Cay was magnificent. So magnificent, in fact, that I lost all track of time and missed the glass-bottom boat tour I’d meant to take. That was alright, because I spent more time snorkeling. We had over two hours at Michaelmas Cay but the time just flew by. Only three companies have permits to operate there, so we weren’t all chock-a-block, as Aussies say. Some of my personal favorites were the giant clams (one of which is featured in the first picture above). These are so big that they don’t move from place to place on the sea floor, so now and again the brightly-colored muscles would clench. There were lots of fish in all shapes, sizes, and colors, although the second site had more fish. And, of course, there was the coral. That too came in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors.

Snorkeling along the Great Barrier Reef is such an experience that it’s a bit hard to describe. After lunch we went to our other site, Paradise Reef, which is out in open water. There I was floating along just in front of and over a school of small, bright blue fish, but I was so near I felt as though I was swimming in with them. To be sharing their gorgeous, multi-colored, richly textured underwater world is an awesome and magical moment. I saw Clarke’s anemone fish (which I thought were clownfish but later learned are a similar but different species), a single large fish which may or may not have been a Queensland grouper, brain coral, coral that looked like an enormous mushroom, purple coral spiking up like so many fingers, coral that waved with the current, a particularly striking fish with bright blue, purple, green, and magenta, plus numerous other kinds of fish and coral. One of the staff members, who was diving and taking pictures that we could later purchase, brought up a sea cucumber which I got to hold while I was snorkeling. (This worked marvelously as a marketing tool, as I subsequently bought the picture for my mom.) The sea cucumber looked like a giant caterpillar – it was about a foot long – and was a slimy, squishy creature.

We didn’t encounter the elusive sea turtles, but at least neither did we encounter reef sharks. To my astonishment, some people want to get up close and personal with sharks. The fact that these are supposedly not sharks that snack on humans did not at all make me want to get near one without a solid barrier between me and the large carnivore with sharp teeth. A Passions of Paradise crewmember mournfully informed us that some 200 million sharks are killed a year and some species are in danger of extinction. I’m sure that’s bad for the ecosystem, but I personally am not a great fan of sharks.

All too soon we were called back to the boat. On the trip back to Cairns we sailed part of the way with the motor off. This was a lovely way to end the day. It was quiet without the engine, enabling us to hear the gentle splashing of the blue water against the boat. I found a good spot and settled in to soak up some sun. (It was a good thing I soaked in the sun face-up, because not long after this I discovered a rather nasty sunburn on my back and the back of my legs, despite two applications of SPF 30. Lots of people had sunburns in Cairns. I’m sure sales of aloe vera are brisk.) I didn’t want the day to end, but at least I had more fun planned for my vacation…

To Be Continued