Great Barrier Reef!

We're in Cairns basically just for today for one reason, to dive in the Great Barrier Reef!  While the Reef is HUGE, Cairns is the most popular city to leave from.  The reef is huge and there's the inner and outer reef with much of the outer reef only accessible via stay aboards (where you have to sleep/stay on a boat for a few days to get out to the reef location).  While a stay aboard sounds great for one day in the future, Will & I weren't wanting to be on a boat for numerous days.  Instead, we did what most people do and did a full day tour out on the water.  We got up early this morning and headed to the Marina and got aboard our Passions of Paradise boat.  The entire experience was great!  The boat was clean and nice and had plenty of seating inside the boat which is where we had lunch and did the safety debriefings.  There were also tons of great seating/laying out areas on the decks of the boat which was great for when we were heading out and heading back from the reef.  We should have taken more pictures but we didn't remember to!  Oh well!

 

The trip included lunch and snorkeling with the option of scuba diving.  We went to two different parts of Hastings Reef which is in the Outer Reef of the Great Barrier Reef.  Will & I both love to scuba so we did decide to scuba dive at both locations but we also got a chance to snorkel at both too.  It was great!  While the Great Barrier Reef is going through bleaching and is in danger of dying, it was still pretty incredible.  There was so much coral to look at and all kinds of cool fish.  We took video clips and pics using our GoPro but it didn't quite do it justice.  It was awesome!

After heading back to Cairns in the afternoon, we went to Prawn Star for a snack.  I had read about it on Trip Advisor and it was exactly what I had expected.  It was basically a "restaurant" on a boat and had the most delicious and fresh seafood!  Then we went back to the apartment to take a shower.  Afterwards, we walked around Cairns and got dinner at a casual Chinese place at the Outdoor Market.  Then we headed back to pack up.  Cairns is a pretty small town so there isn't that much to do besides some random small shops and restaurants.  Plus we were pretty pooped from the day!  Tomorrow, we're off to Sydney!