Sunday, July 10, 2011

Snorkeling!


Day 38: The Great Barrier Reef

After the 10-hour overnight bus ride, we arrived in Cairns at around 6am, walked to our hotel, dropped off our luggage, and headed over to the marina to catch our cruise to the Great Barrier Reef.

The cruise took us out into the open ocean, where we suited up in our snorkeling gear and jumped into the water to snorkel the Great Barrier Reef. The waves were quite strong, making the water fairly cloudy and also making it difficult for us to see much, but we did see some of the coral and some cool fish, and Gaurav saw a turtle! Rachna had a bit of a hard time with the strong waves, but we did manage to snorkel for some time. We swam back to the boat, and Rachna felt a little nauseous because of the rough waves, but we had some lunch and she felt better after some time.

The cruise operators told us that when the tides begin to subside, sand islands called cays begin to appear throughout the ocean! So basically there are these sand “dunes” that breach the water when it gets low enough. The cruise then took us out to another area on the reef, where we were taken to two cays and we basically “walked on the ocean”! It was so cool to walk from sand dune to sand dune in the middle of the ocean and to be surrounded by water everywhere with no land in sight! It was like we had discovered an island and were the first to set foot on it! Then we snorkeled some more, and saw some interesting creatures and huge corals.

The ride back to the mainland was quite rough and wet, but we made it! We didn’t see as much as we had hoped to see on the reef, but it was still a cool experience!

We walked around town a bit in the evening, had a bite to eat, prepared for our early flight tomorrow morning, and passed out!

Fish on the coral reef

Cays in the middle of the ocean (can you spot the two of them?)

 Gaurav carrying Rachna over the threshold (on the cay)

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