The GBR.

After a few more days in Cairns, I moved a little north to Port Douglas.  The Port is quite fancy compared to Cairns with some impressive homes and accommodations.  Who can blame them for stepping it up when they have the beautiful Four Mile Beach?

I chose to take my first Great Barrier Reef tour out of Port Douglas rather than Cairns, because it has far less boats which hopefully corresponds to less human-induced damage.  I also chose a boat that carries a small number of passengers for a more intimate experience.  This eco-friendly boat has a marine biologist on board (and in the water) and only organizes snorkeling.  Because they only do snorkeling, all the sites (we visited 3 different sites around an outer reef, called Opal Reef) are specifically chosen for snorkelers.  I decided I didn’t want to try diving during my first GBR experience, because I didn’t want to be distracted by learning how to dive rather than observing and experiencing everything around me.  For the similar reasons, I decided not to take any underwater photographs.  I didn’t want to be worried about taking a good photo while missing out on something swimming right by me.

There is so much going on that it’s hard to describe.  Lots of different colored corals… the tropical fish come in so many colors, patterns, shapes, and sizes… sometimes you hear grinding from the parrotfish eating the algae off the coral…  I saw a couple of rays on the sandy bottom, where there are lots of different types of slow-moving sea cucumbers.  The marine biologist picked up a pineapple sea cucumber, and she let us hold it.  It was about 1.5 feet in length, as thick as a loaf of sandwich, and heavier than I expected.  I also held a mushroom coral, which is a type of soft coral so you won’t find its remains washed up on the beach.  As we lifted it out of the water, it started producing the stinky gelatinous sunscreen.  I like the Christmas tree worms, which bore holes into the coral and leave only their brightly colored spiral feather-like tentacles exposed.  These Christmas tree-shaped tentacles are used to capture food and for respiration.  The worms react to water pressure changes, so if you snap your fingers near them, they will instantly pull their tentacles back into their holes.  I also saw a few giant calms with beautiful coloring.

The marine biologist was snapping photos throughout our trip.  I could shell out for a copy of the CD, but it won’t necessarily reflect what I saw and my experience.  I’m happy with my memories for my first GBR experience.  Maybe I’ll take photos on my next time out (I hope to go again).  Or better yet, come visit and we can experience the GBR together =)