Day 9: Great Barrier Reef

Day 9

Summary: Snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef

Friday, January 10th

We woke up at 6:30am, walked to the marina, and boarded the Passions of Paradise catamaran to go snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef. This was an optional activity that was not included in our tour, so not everyone in our group chose to do it. Most people did though.

The boat was big so we could go pretty fast. We drove about 2 hours to our first snorkeling location on the Great Barrier Reef.

They provided us with wet/stinger suits with hand and head covers, masks, snorkels, flippers, and floaties that go around your waist. Having a suit with a hood really helped keep my hair out of my face so I didn’t have to keep wiping hair away from my view and untangling my hair bun from the mask strap. The mask and snorkel were really nice quality, which I would expect from a snorkeling tour company. The snorkels had little chambers below the mouthpiece that served to catch some of the water that came down the tube from the waves. That little feature helped so much because I had choked on water a few times using the snorkel from the sailboat. The flippers were super helpful in the ocean current. It’s so fun to swim with flippers because you swim so much faster!

The first things we saw were clown fish! I was so happy because that was the main thing I wanted to see. I would have missed them if Greg hadn’t pointed them out to me. They were so small and they didn’t look bright white and orange in the blue tint of the ocean. If you zoom in on the picture you can see how small they are! So cute! I could have just stayed there watching them the whole time.

This floatie situation was so comfortable! It goes right around your waist and it really helped me float around horizontally so I could relax above the coral.

Can you see the grouper in this picture? It’s hiding underneath the overhanging piece of white coral. I couldn’t find it in real life when Greg was pointing it out to me, so I finally got to see it in our GoPro footage.

We saw tons of bright blue parrot fish! They were eating the reef and you could hear them chomping away. It sounded like someone was eating an apple underwater.

We got back on the boat and had lunch while we drove to the next snorkel spot. The second spot was calmer and shallower than the first which made it easier to see the reef since we could swim right over it.

The boat took us back to shore and we walked back to the hostel to shower. Since it was our last night with our tour group, we all went out to dinner together at Rattle ‘N Hum Bar & Grill. Greg and I had the gnocchi with pesto and parmesan cheese and it was so good! Then the group went to a bar/club called The Woolshed. When we arrived, there wasn’t anyone on the dance floor. But then I started dancing with one of the girls in our group and we had a great time. We created silly synchronized dances that we made up as we went along.