Day 218 / 2015 - Cairns Cruising to the Outer Reef

The Great Barrier Reef which lies of the coast of Queensland and stretches from Hervey in the South to Torres Strait in the North and is approx 2300km in length. It starts a fair way off the coast at the southern end but comes closer to the coast as you travel north.

We wanted to take a trip to the outer part of the barrier reef. There are a number of spots you can tour from but further south it is a fair way off the coast. I remember taking a tour to Lady Musgrave Island from 1770 but it was about a 3 hour trip. Cairns is well set up and the outer reef is fairly close only taking about 90 minutes. The weather in Cairns had been a bit hit and miss so keeping a keen eye on the forecast we waitied until a good day with low winds was predicted. Picking our day we booked with Reef Magic and hoped like heck the weather would hold as forecasted. We had picked Reef Magic as they did a few presentations at free pancake Thursday put on by the park.

On the day we drove out to the Harbour checked in at terminal then boarded our boat after having the obligatory no obligation photo taken. The 90 minute trip out was reasonably smooth, a good sign the weather was going to be okay. On the way out the staff would try to sign you up for one of the paid activities on offer it was up to you if you wanted to do them or not. Graham wanted to do a Helichopter flight over the reef. Rhonda nor Anne wanted to go so I signed up as well. Our flight time would be given to us once we arrived at our destination.

As we drew closer we could see our destination a pontoon which was permanently anchored next to a section of the reef. The water was crystal clear and we thought about going straight in for a snorkle but past experience has taught us do the included and paid for tours first as you can run out of time real quick.