Day 32: Venturing out to the Great Barrier Reef!

Cairns is near the northern end of the Great Barrier Reef. I had booked on a snorkeling trip that departed at 8 AM; I was meant to check in by 7:30 AM. Google told me it was a 25-minute walk from the Floreana Guest House, where I was staying, to the harbor. I added in a few minutes of go-wrong time and half an hour to get some breakfast, and had set two alarms before I went to bed the night before.

Well, guess what. I slept soundly through both of them! I awoke at 6:55, and somehow managed to jump out of bed, put my contacts in, get dressed and grab my stuff. (I did forget my towel, but that was a minor inconvenience.) I was out of the hotel within five minutes.

When I had looked at the map, it seemed to be an easy route. After I had crossed over the wide, busy boulevard I noticed a taxi on the other side of the road. I nearly crossed back over, but it would waste valuable minutes to navigate the traffic, plus I figured the cab was waiting for someone. (Later I learned that this was a taxi rank!!)

Now the road I was on forked. Was it quicker to take the right fork or the left one? There was no one to ask. In fact the streets were almost deserted! It turned out I chose the shortest route, but the "walk" (which in my case had been a walk/run), was NOT 25 minutes. I got there just in time, and once I boarded the boat I collapsed.

I was aware that you could also dive from this boat, but I assumed that you would have to pay extra. You did not, nor did you need to have diving experience. I turned down the opportunity as I was so tired and stressed that I did not think my brain could handle thinking about breathing. Besides, there was just as much to see a few feet from the surface.

By the way, Cairns is only the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef. You can't swim to it. Well, I suppose you could try but you would probably be eaten by a shark, stung by a jellyfish or stingray, or die of exhaustion first. It's a good two hours out there. The ride is very choppy and I was grateful that I seem to be immune to seasickness. We spent an hour in each of two different sites, and this was the first one:

My video camerawork was also very choppy; it was extremely difficult to hold the camera still in that current!

After that we had a buffet lunch aboard the boat, then went on to the second site. We snorkeled from this sandy island. On land I enjoyed watching this greedy shearwater chick pestering its mum.

And once in the water, I encounter this giant clam...

And another one!

The water was not too clear here, but that's a sponge, folks.

Now it's back to the boat for the long trip back...

After the feeding session the waves became more choppy than ever. Each person had to go up to the bar to settle their bill. As I made my way back to my seat after doing so, there was one bit where there was nothing to hold on to. At that point the ship lurched violently and I was thrown to the ground, landing full force on my left knee (at the top of a steep stairwell; it could have been worse!)

I was in a lot of pain for the next hour or so as my knee swelled up like a grapefruit, and the crew fawned over me, giving me ice packs and drinks. By the time we reached land it didn't hurt so much and actually didn't impede walking at all, which was a good thing!

Oh, one thing about Queensland that's a bit confusing... When I had traveled from Melbourne to Adelaide, the time zone changed by only half an hour. Fair enough. But when I flew from Adelaide to Cairns, suddenly instead of going that half hour back, the clock went the other way. So all of Queensland, which doesn't observe Daylight Saving Time, was half an hour earlier than Adelaide and a full hour earlier than Melbourne, even though most of it is much farther east!

This all meant it got dark rather early for late spring, and also meant I was able to watch the thousands of flying foxes setting out for the evening as I hobbled back to my hotel.