Snorkeling in Cairns

Arrived back in Cairns on Wednesday after having spent a couple of weeks in NZ – thank you everyone for your kind thoughts and good wishes.

Thursday we headed off early to board Passions of Paradise and head off on a day snorkelling trip. 

Tony feeling right at home

Had a safety briefing with all the forms to fill out etc – normal all care no responsibility stuff. First person we talked to was a lady from Napier who’s dad lives in Rotorua – gee it is really hard to escape the place!!  First stop Michaelmas Cay – a small sand spit that is 90% bird sanctuary, so the deal is we moor at sea and get ferried to the beach by glass bottomed boat –and already we can see some cool bat fish and huge trevally. 

So over to the beach where I got to pose – excuse the squinting!! In the background you can see Passions of Paradise.

So off we went into the sea which apparently was 24 degrees and wow what an amazing experience – huge clams, beautiful fish and coral of every shape, size and colour in beautiful clear blue sea – so cool and something which I had sort of decided was really confined to postcards and brochures but here I was snorkelling amongst it.  After and hour and a half we headed back to the boat for lunch, a lovely smorgasboard and then relaxed in the sun for a while before heading to our next snorkelling spot, a mooring 10 minutes away – this time we needed to jump off the back of the boat, something I am not that good at but I wriggled my way into the water and off we went again.  Quite a different spot, a lot more open with bigger canyons and an amazing drop off which made my tummy flip when I got to the edge as I thought I was going to fall off – hmmm….

feeding frenzy

fish from onbaord Passions - the reef is the dark spot at the top of the photo

So a fantastic day and now we head back to Mackay having accepted an offer of 8 weeks work at Sugar Australia.