Here's another illustration of the scale:
We cruised out of Cairns, into the big blue. The boat met up with its pontoon which just sits out at the reef permanently, and this is where we spent the next 4 1/2 hours.
There were lots of things to do - glass bottomed boat tours, a semi-submersible boat tour, a "touch tank" where people were allowed to molest some starfish and sea cucumbers, which were carefully counted at the end of the day before they were returned to the sea. Apparently they are a delicacy in some Asian countries and have been known to disappear into Asian tourists' bags - we were told that the bigger, football-sized ones would be worth $5000-$6000. Here is Nate returning it to its home after what must have been a stressful day, as far as sea cucumbers experience stress:
There was a children's pool which was enclosed but fish could swim in and out of:
And there were little landings for snorkellers to launch themselves from. I took Maya and Nate to snorkel first thing while Nick sat with sleeping Eli on the big boat. Unfortunately, we just couldn't get their masks and snorkels to work for them. Maya was happy to abandon the task and hang out in the children's pool, but Nate got quite frustrated with all of the failed attempts - there was either water getting into the mask or into the snorkel, or too many bubbles in front of his face (I have no idea what that was about). Nick couldn't make it work either when he came out to the pontoon, and eventually Nate decided he would give up trying and enjoy some other stuff. It was a hairy time there for awhile, with a grumpy kid, but it all worked out.
Here are some pictures from the semi-submersible (the colour reminds me of The Abyss):
Turtle! Dude!
Nick and I did some snorkelling, one at a time obviously. We opted not to hire the stinger suits after we discovered that there haven't been any stingers spotted at this area of the reef this season, but I found that I was still a bit nervous. I'm a bit of a nervous ocean person really, especially when there are genuinely things that can kill you, or at the very least make you very uncomfortable, floating and swimming about.
And Nate managed to find a bluebottle :o( He was just swimming from the snorkelling platform to the children's pool, right along the side of the pontoon, a distance of about 10 metres. It wasn't a big - what do I call it, sting? contact? But it hurt him, and it left a few small welts on his leg. The staff onboard knew exactly what to do, of course. The sweet lifeguard sprayed the area with vinegar and gave Nate some ice to put on it, and then she did the most helpful thing of all - she told him that she has seen grown adults cry from the pain, so he must be really, really tough. He loved hearing that and promptly reported this to Maya after the lifeguard had walked away.
We splurged (when haven't we lately, really?) and hired an underwater camera. The camera place transferred all of our photos and videos to a disk for us, but there is no disk drive on our little computer! We'll have to find a computer to transfer them over to a memory stick so that I can see them and upload any amazing ones.
I'm disappointed to report that all in all, the experience was a bit of a letdown. Because of the pontoon, it doesn't really feel like you're going out into the middle of the ocean (well not the middle, but you know what I mean). It feels like you're just going to another resort. And because the staff go to the same place every day, they already kind of know what's going to be out there. Sometimes there is a bit of variety - sharks and turtles come and go after all - but there are residents there that the staff have named, like Wally the Maori wrasse, which gives the feeling of jumping into a giant aquarium. For me, the draw of the reef was the wildness of it, but it didn't feel that way at all. On the flipside of that coin, it did feel very safe which is the feeling you want with kids around.
The buffet was good though :o)
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