July 7th

Here is one of the long awaited blogs about our two day tours we took while up at Port Douglas. This day was a full day trip out to the Outer Barrier Reef. We were aboard the vessel Aristocat, which was a large catamaran. Despite some rocky waves on the one hour trip out to our first snorkel site, Dad managed to keep his breakfast down and the first site was spectacular. The water was 25 degrees celsius, super warm and no need for wetsuits. We donned our snorkels, fins and jumped off the back of the boat into the warm waters over the reef. We saw so many types of colorful fish, various corals and towards the end of the hour long stop, a reef shark! Cass freaked out at this sighting, but the reef shark was more afraid of us and swam quickly away before we could capture a decent photo.

In between the first and second snorkel sites we were treated to a great buffet lunch aboard the boat, and then we hopped back into the water to swim around for another hour and a half at the second reef site. Here, we saw a huge Wrasse, an extremely large fish that was probably half my size and some massive coral structures. No new fish were seen besides the wrasse, so Cass and the rest of us took the opportunity to snap some candids underwater. We had great fun posing with the snorkels under the waves!

The third site was practically the same deal, lots of fish, coral and other unique features. We didn't see any turtles, and only that one shark, but overall it was a fantastic day. Our guides were great, the boat was a beauty and the sights were pretty amazing. The only bad thing that happened was that Quinn, Dad and I got SO burnt on our backs. The photos tell all, but we learnt pretty quickly that despite an overcast day, the Aussie sun is lethal!