We left at 8 AM
for a day of cruising on the Great Barrier Reef on the Calypso.
It took about 45 minutes of motoring to get to their mooring sites – in the
morning we were on the west side of Opal Reef. We wore protective lycra suits to avoid any stings from
jellyfish or coral. Lovely attire
in addition to the snorkels and fins.
They had a special corrective lens snorkel mask that I could use –
worked surprisingly well.
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| Dockside in Port Douglas |
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| Our cruise boat, the Calypso |
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| It's me (Susan) in case you can't quite tell... |
I haven’t been in 15 years, but it was pretty easy to get the hang of
the breathing. Stability of
motion, especially with the pool noodle, was less optimal. Mike was my buddy, and kept me from
crashing into anyone. We saw tons of fish, anemone, three giant clams, a few sea cucumbers and all colors of coral – pink, purple, blue,
green, yellow. Beautiful.
We had a buffet lunch on the boat and a lecture about the reefs from Suze –
a very funny kiwi who has her master’s degree in marine biology. She explainedxplained that up to 90% of
the sands come from the parrot fish eating the coral and passing it through
their digestive system. All that
beautiful sand we’re walking on is coral poop! She also told us to listen to the sound of their scraping on
the next outing, and they were really quite loud once you knew what your were
listening for.
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