Great Barrier Reef Day!
Today we took a 2 hour cruise on the Coral Sea and into the heart the Great Barrier Reef.
Here's our first sight of Reef World, a semi-permanent pontoon set up at Hook Reef for all the visiting snorkelers.
Expansive reef under crystal clear waters.
The cliff off the inner edge of the reef.
We transferred from our ferry onto FantaSea's pontoon where we had access to snorkeling equipment, submarine, slide, showers, and an underwater viewing chamber. FantaSea served us a yummy lunch buffet too!
Dressed in our designer stinger suits. It's jelly fish season and we saw quite a few.
We looked like Telletubbies! But so did everyone else. :-)
Let's go snorkeling!
With warm water it was easy to spend a lot of time exploring underwater.
We didn't have an underwater camera but we did have an exciting snorkeling experience! We saw a lot of interesting coral that goes on forever and particularly liked the clams that are small and huge (one that we could fit inside). We swam with a wide variety of colorful fish and a sea turtle! Turtles are special to find since they are rare. We watched him eat from the coral for at least a 1/2 hour. Then as a bonus...Bob spotted a shark!!! We were startled, a bit unsettled, but excited to see him swim by us looking for some fish dinner. Apparently it was a reef shark and not interested in us, thank goodness. The Fantasea staff said we were quite lucky to see a shark. Yeah!
On the pontoon for lunch. What a beautiful day we had to experience the reef!
2 thumbs up for our snorkeling fun!
Back on the ferry to head for shore.
This was the calmness of the day. Glass waters on the ocean. Wow!
The captain said he hadn't seen a day this perfect for a long time.
Fantastic!
Jane - I know I have said this numerous times, but your pics are wonderful. I bet the Great Barrier Reef was something to behold.
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