Day 41 – Feb 24 – Cairns, Australia

This city is in northeastern Australia. It is pronounced as if spelled “cans.”

The main attraction at this port was a trip to the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). The GBR is over 1200 miles long. We took a tour that included a boat ride out to a large pontoon (about 40 feet wide by 100 feet long) located at the reef.

We started with a ride in a “semi-sub,” which was a boat that rode on the surface of the water, but had view ports just below sea level. They said there were over 130 types of coral and 900 different types of fish on the reef. A two-foot long fish followed our boat the whole 20 minute trip.

There was a area for snorkeling that we did next. There was a strange fish there named Wally that was about 2-feet long, mostly bright blue in color, had bulging eyeballs, and bushy eyebrows about one inch high and 2 inches wide. He looked like he escaped from a cartoon. They were feeding Wally while we were on the sub, so we missed out on getting an underwater photo with him.

We also did a guided snorkeling excursion at the pontoon on the outside of the reef. It was amazing how completely covered the reef was with different life. Some of the coral was “hard” and some “soft.” The soft coral would ripple with changes in the current, and would retract portions if disturbed by a fish.

We saw a giant clam. It must have been 18 inches in diameter. It had the sinusoidal edges on the top and bottom shells that must have been 7 inches in amplitude. The guide dove down to get near this one, and the jaws slowly shut. She claimed it is a myth about the slightly larger ones that would close and trap divers because the jaws close so slowly and it is a defensive move by the clam who really wants to eat only tiny plankton.

Helicopter rides were available to see the reef from the air. You could not see much from the water surface, but from the air it was visible as if an island.

We won’t have many photos to post, since all the action was under water.

I found it interesting that our ship has 3 water systems: potable, sewer, and “gray.” Gray water is mostly waste from sinks and showers. While the sewage system needs properly treated, the gray water is typically dumped at sea. However, ships are not allowed to dump gray water within the GBR. Because of the amount of time we will sail within the reef, the capacity of our gray water system is not adequate to make it the entire way, so at one point we have to divert outside of the reef just in order to dump the gray water system.

It was in the 80’s for our trip to the GBR. I have sunburn on my face that frames the white area where my snorkel mask was. It is supposed to get up to 100 degrees in Australia by the end of the week; however, we are now on the part of our trip where we travel north for 10 days as we go up towards Japan, so we’ll be seeing some drop in temperatures.

We had heard that the average rainfall in this area of Australia is 430 inches per year. This means we were lucky to have had a clear day at the reef. Last night we did get hit with a very hard rain that probably gave us our inch plus per day over a few hours.