Great Barrier Reef Snorkelling

Today was a success! We went on a snorkelling outing which I have been worrying about since we booked it. Having found the snorkelling on the Whitsunday's a bit overwhelming I wasn't keen to get back in the water but you can't miss out on the opportunity to see the Great Barrier Reef so we set sail again on a bigger boat having taken anti sickness pills as a back up.

The day was so well organised, they walked you around the boat and sized you up for a wet suit, snorkels and flippers before you could collect your welcome cup of tea. We had an hour and a half of fairly rough sailing to get to the reef which was broken up by a humpback whale spotting. Infact we saw two of them, they came up a few times and we had to wait patiently as they dipped down. At one stage they came very close to the boat and everyone was very excited. We got a few great pics!!

We stopped at three spots today, all close together on the reef. They were a bit deeper with less fish which actually worked better for me, I didn't have to worry about accidentally touching anything. My mask was a dream in comparison to last time, it left like I was just watching through a little glass window, rather than breathing in salt water through the leak by my nose and coughing and spluttering and getting mouthfuls of salt water every time I had to de-mist the goggles. We saw some stunning fish, often bigger than the Whitsunday's and the coral was brilliant. My favourite were the shoals of little fluorescent blue fish.

The company we went with were brilliant, on the second stop they offered guided tours which involved them picking things up or pointing things out. They have special permits as marine biologist to pick things up that they know are safe. We all got to hold a piece of coral and a pineapple sea cucumber! Very weird experience, they're rubbery, have sucker on their bottoms and, what looks like, lots of orange star fish on their tops. Most cucumbers have a defence mechanism where they disembowel themselves when attacked, this means the predictor gets stuck and tangled in their intestines whilst the cucumber just sneaks away!! It then has to re-grow it's bowl and can't eat during the process!! Mind blowing!!

Our guide was great and down us a 'nemo', clown fish! They're normally fairly hard to see because they hide in the anemone for protection but the anemone was feeding and had pulled it tentacles in so the clown fish were on display. You're not going to believe this... Clown fish start as a couple, male and female on an anemone, with other little males there too waiting their turn to get in on the action. The biggest fish is the female, when she dies the male HAS A SEX CHANGE and becomes the new mum and one of the smaller males becomes her new partner. Now just think how that would work out if Pixar has stuck to the facts!! Apparently this is common in fish and it's a survival technique so that you always have enough of each sex to continue breeding!! Fascinating!!

At lunch we were given a talk to by a marine biologist about coral, healthy coral should be brown and neutral colours, if it's is a bright colour it means it is stressed, she explained the science behind it but I was concentrating on getting out of the sun to protect my already burnt skin so could only focus on the basic stuff!! Coral gets stressed and dies for many reasons but lately it's been due to high water temperatures.

Coral mates by ejecting the spores and sperm into the sea. This happens in very specific times based on the water temperature, the moon and tides, at night so the fish don't get the spores and other factors too. It's so specific that this year it will be the 18th November at 10pm!!!!! All coral, even sometimes in aquariums will reproduce at the exact same time!! Can you believe that!!!

The last dive was the best, they call it the fish bowl and we were in a bowl of coral all around with fish from every angle, absolutely stunning. We then returned home having had tea and cake and Edd and I jumped straight in the car for our drive the Cairns.

We arrived as it was getting dark, our hostel room is basic but I was so so grateful for a shower. We then headed out to explore Cairns by night and to be honest we weren't too impressed, it seemed that the streets were lined with travel agents, back packers and bars. This is a party town it would seem, maybe it will look better by day tomorrow.

We walked to, what felt like, the middle of no where and found a bar called the 'green ant cantina' a Mexican but with a brewery. We sat on long benches next to 3 Aussie guys and thoroughly enjoyed watching them attempting the 'wing of death challenge'. 

This was to eat a small basket of very very spicy chicken wings with no drinks! Technically the challenge is a basket each but each guy only managed a chicken wing with the strongest managing another half. I've never seen so many tears and sweat and a lot of milk consumed. The boys were struggling to talk the wings were so hot! Please to say Edd didn't try one even though they offered!! A cocky guy on the other side took up the offer and realised his mistake a bite in, he looked so pained for so long!!

Edd and I will give cairns a second chance in the day light tomorrow. We are both off to sleep with even more sun burn than before! You can see where my wet suit came to.