Day 11…Reef Trip Day
Today was our trip to the Outer Reef. We arrived at the Marina early, and had some breakfast at Soul and Pepper for the second day in a row. We boarded at 9:30 and the catamaran pulled away at 10:00am ready for the 90 minute journey to the outer reef. Quicksilver Reef Tours served free tea and coffee for us, and some small snacks along the way. After arriving at 11:30, we ate some of the smorgasbord lunch, then changed into our skin-suits for a snorkelling outing. The pictures will show the snorkelling area, but basically it was a wedge-shaped area that was roped off by buoys that went as far as you wanted to go. Melody and I stayed out for a while, probably 30 minutes the first time around. I took about 30 pictures with the underwater camera, then took a short break on deck.
A quick walk through the 10 metre-long underwater observatory was followed by our second and last snorkelling trip that lasted about an hour this time. We swam around for a while and saw some great fish and coral right near the pontoon.
This was definitely a better outing than any of my previous reef trips. Many more fish and much brighter colors in the coral. There were some foot-long fish, some 2-foot long fish, and one that was easily 3.5 or 4 feet long. It stayed mostly away from the swimmers, but was easy to see and swim down to.
Melody had some trouble with her mask and snorkel fitting correctly, and had to change them a couple of times. Eventually she got her hands on a kids size mask, which worked out much better for her.
At 2:45, the crew did a passenger check with us all back on board, and then we made the 90 minute trip back to Port Douglas.
All in all, it was worth the cost and time, the only thing i would changed would be to have more time in the water. But there’s always next time.
