It's about as unbelievable as we thought it would be. Saw huge turtles, millions of beautiful fish, giant clams, and thousands of varieties of coral.
It really looks just like this!
We snorkeled in 2 different locations. One started at Michelmas Cay, about 33 km east of Cairns, where they take you by tender into this small sand island to start the snorkeling and you swim back to the boat. The second was Hastings reef, where you jump from the boat to explore fantastic underwater canyons. Once you swam over the ledge you felt like you were flying as you looked down at the fish and corals on the sides and bottom of the canyons.
We were VERY lucky as it's rainy season here. When we left the house it was pouring buckets. Once on board the boat, it cleared and we only saw about 5 minutes of rain all day. Until we landed, where we were slammed with another round of torrential rain.
GBR is a national park and very heavily regulated. That keeps it nice, but also keeps it very uncrowded. The different boats basically buy permits for certain areas, and only 2 boats are allowed at any time. Plus the boats have limits on how many people so it's not like a swarm of tourists descending on a small area.
This is my favorite thing you have done so far!
ReplyDeleteHi Kate, I think this was my favorite too! First, warm water and they allowed about 1.5 hrs in each place to snorkel. It was unreal. Actually the only other place where we saw something like this before was Turks and Caicos a few years ago. But on such a smaller scale it cannot be compared. And who doesn't love getting in and out of wet spandex stinger suits :)
ReplyDeleteWow, this looks like an absolute dream!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful fish, coral, etc...really STUNNING! Didn't realize how regulated it is - which makes it even more special that you were able to experience it!
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