Snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef

Yesterday we jumped on a plane to Cairns.  It was a three hour flight for around $200 a person.  We could have bought a cheaper flight on Tiger Airways, but it left at 11:30PM and didn't arrive until after 2AM.  We thought we could spring for a decent arrival time.

Cairns is deliciously warm.  I am so sick of being mildly cold that it is a welcomed relief.  America's Next Top Model was on in the TV lounge last night, which also happens to be the only room with an open plug for our computer, so we watched it while we charged up out computer.

This morning we left for our Great Barrier Reef snorkeling trip.  Boarding was at 8am and we found good seats on the top deck inside in front of a table.  Across the table from us sat Kate and Karen, two middle aged women from Australia.  Both used to be divers but on this trip they were snorkeling. I asked how best to avoid seasickness and they informed me that the #1 cause was hunger.  They said as long as I don't allow myself to get hungry I should be fine. The tour company must know that as well because there were muffins and sandwiches of cheese and sun dried tomato for breakfast, a delicious buffet of hot and cold dishes for lunch, and afternoon cakes and cheese.

The ship took us to three different locations on the outer reef.  The first location we reached was at 10AM.  We snorkeled for an hour and saw a sea turtle swimming and lots of colorful fish. The coral was only somewhat colorful which was sad. It was pretty cloudy at this point so that probably didn't help.
The next spot was about 20 minutes away.  We were immediately served lunch and then allowed to snorkel for about an hour.  This spot had three large coral islands that stopped about a meter from the surface.  We snorkeled over them but could also see fish along the sides of them.

At the third spot one of the crew members led a tour of the reef for about 30 minutes.  It was neat, she pointed out a giant purple clam and then swam down to it to touch it and make it close up.  Then she pointed out some christmas tree worms which also closed up when she touched them.  Then we split off from the group because there were too many people swimming around us.  Towards the end of our hour at the third spot Andy went in early because he was getting tired.  I stayed out and saw a white tipped reef shark swim by.  I followed it for a bit until it turned around and looked at me, then I figured it probably wasn't a good idea to follow a shark, even if it generally isn't aggressive towards humans.

We stopped briefly at Green Island to pick up some passengers and then headed to port at 4:30.  For dinner we bought some vegetables and stir fry sauce and made rice that we have been carrying around with us.  We also stopped at the bottle shop to pick up a 40 oz (really 750mL) of XXXX bitter, the most popular beer made in Queensland.  It wasn't terrible, but not great either.