Snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef

Today I went snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef. We had gorgeous weather - my first day without rain in a long time. We went to Michaelmas Cay, which is really just a few yards of sand with lots of birds. But that was okay, since no one was focused on the beach...the reef was the main attraction.

Although they would let newbies scuba with just a short amount of training, I decided to snorkel. It was really cool, and pretty easy to do. The first time I was out for almost 2 hours. I wore a life jacket because I wasn't sure how easy it would be to swim/float for an extended period. The downside is I couldn't go far underwater. That worked for me. It was sort of nice to know I could just relax and enjoy. I bought an underwater camera and took some pictures - we'll see if anything shows up. The second time I went out, I did not use a life jacket, but I knew I had less than 30 minutes before we'd be called back to leave. I didn't even notice the difference.

The coral was not as bright as I expected, but it was cool to see all the different types of coral. It was pretty much all yellows and browns, with spots of purple, green, or blue that stood out and made it more special. There was one coral that was shaped like a giant clam at the top with purple in the middle. I kept trying to take a picture, and before I knew it, I'd passed it, so I would try to swim backwards (not really possible with fins), and then go forward again. But again I missed it...I must have done this 4 or 5 times before I got somewhat close to what I wanted. My luck, after all that, the picture won't turn out.

I also saw several fish. My favorite was a rainbow fish (my name). It was bright neon colors of blue, yellow, pink, and green. It's lips looked like someone had put a heavy layer of green teal lipstick on it.

After a fantastic buffet (this boat is known to have the best food), I went on a semi-submersible boat tour of the reef. This allowed us to go further out, and I could take pictures with my digital camera. We saw jailbird fish (black and white stripes), Mick Jagger fish (big lips), firefly fish (small, bright yellow), and a turtle (note, all names of fish are mine, and not official).

So that's it for today. My last tour is the Daintree Rainforest tomorrow.

Interesting fact day 25: Much of coral does not have color...most of the color comes from lichen (although some do have pigments). Also, coral needs light to look bright. They use huge lights to get the colors we see in movies and pictures.