Gateway To the Great Barrier Reef

7 am transfer from our hostel to the Reef Fleet Terminal, her we checked in and then boarded Passions of Paradise a beautiful catamaran and embarked on our tour that would take us to the great barrier reef.
It's a 2+ hours travel time to the reef from Cairns, and during that time we ate our carry on snacks and chatted among us.
We finally made it to the reef, and after putting on all the gear we jumped into the water at dive site 1770 on Hastings Reef.
It was great. We had to swim a bit from the ship to reach the actual coral reef, here we could see loads of soft and hard coral, a few giant mussels, plenty of fish, and a few strange creatures such as the sea cucumber. I got really lucky and got to see a white tipped reef shark as the only one in our group and there were maybe just 2 or 3 others on the entire ship who saw the shark.
We were called back on board, and as a head count had confirmed everyone was back, the ship was moved while everyone had lunch.
We didn't move very far as we stayed on the same reef, only the dive site was now called Stepping Stones. Here we had an hour and a half to go explore. Again there was plenty of coral and fish, but now we could also find blue starfish, I swam a lot and tried to mix it up between the edges of the reef and the center. Each has its own pros and cons. The edge has fewer but generally larger fish, where the center has more but often smaller fish.
I made it back to the boat right before they called everyone in. It didn't feel like an hour and a half. Emily thought the call back was a guided tour coming her way so she tried to escape, until she realised what was going on.
On the way back to Cairns we went to a talk about the reef, it was interesting to learn that the stories about coral bleaching the past two years were greatly exaggerated.
Back at the marina our transfer was delayed, but at least we got to see thousands of bats leaving the city to go foraging.
Back at our hostel we got ourselves ready for our final night together. First we had dinner before going to a nightclub.
Some of the others like me have a couple of days or more in Cairns so hopefully we can manage to meet up during the next couple of days.Read more