The Wandering Tattler

We drove into Port Douglas and boarded the Poseidon, a motorized catamaran that took us out of the harbor and about 38 nautical miles from shore (about 42 terrestrial miles, I believe). Near shore we encountered choppy seas and quite a few people (of about 50 on-board) became sick, but as we neared the reef, the seas quieted and everyone was eager to get into the water. The water temperature was about 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit), so even I did not get cold. The reef system is so vast and healthy and the number of types and forms of coral so much greater than we’d ever seen before that the initial effect was rather overwhelming. The types and diversity of fishes was also astonishing and defies quick description. We snorkeled on three different reefs (the GBR is just an extremely long chain of many smaller reefs) and each offered different attractions. We saw barracuda at only one site, and we were all disappointed that our snorkel guide was not able to arouse any sleeping white-tip reef sharks for us to see, but in general the quality and diversity of life on the reef was as great as we could have hoped. Our Poseidon expedition lasted from 8:30 am until about 4:30 pm, and we were very lucky to have gone out on a day when exceptionally good conditions prevailed at the reef. We did not snorkel on the outer side of the reef, since waves were crashing against it with great force; this is the place where the continental shelf ends and the sea bed drops into the abyss. We can now say that we’ve snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef!