Reef Cruise out to the Barrier Reef

So this is the reason we had to go up early the next day, as we had to be at the marina the crack of dawn, ok, maybe not quite crack of dawn, as we had enough time to grab a take away coffee in the morning ( and for me to leave my phone behind, only to retrieve it 2 days later-thanks for your honesty guys ) Anyway, so here we are, sitting on the deck of the boat we hired, well it sleeps 11 so there;s a german couple with their daughter and her aussie boyfriend, and an american with his younger daughter, and sailing out to the barrier reef. I been to the barrier reef before, but that was on one of those ferry type boats along with several hundred other people, this is different, less people, plus we stay over night on the reef ( in the boat, not camping on the reef :-) So excited, been wanting to do this for a while, but it was a bit out of our budget range, but this time we thought, stuff it, let's do it, we will love it and great experience for the kids as well

as we leave Cairns behind us

Evan about to go for a snorkel, and yes, you are right, what happend, that does not look like the barrier reef ! Unfortunatly, after that last photo was taken, we got a bit more out into the sea ( and not quite the open sea yet ) and there was a fierce seabreeze blowing ( howling ) so whilst we still had protection from the mainland heading out, it was already getting rather bumpy, and we all retreated to the back of the boat, as there were too many waves splashing over the nose, and getting whipped across deck by the wind. So we were advised to make a decision, either we head out and it will get a lot rougher, or we seek shelter at Fitroy Island. Upside, no vomitting over board and calmer water, downside, no barrier reef, damn, as of course making it to the reef and seasick would be no fun either

this will be our spot for the next 30 hours

snorkel of the island it is

Belle's ready ( after a rather bumpy journey for her :-(

even though we have the protection of Fitzroy Island, you can still make out a bit of the swell coming into here

and the swell passing our boat

and looking towards the mainland, so not quite the outer reef experience we were expecting

we had hoped to bring you amazing photos of aquablue water, with no land in sight and instead the shallow waters of the barrier coral reef, and some underwater photos of us snorkelling amongst the colours of the coral reef, instead we are stuck here on Fitzroy Island, and spent a small fortune to do so , when we could have just caught the ferry out here :-(

the boat is even decked out for scuba diving, so with my go-pro I would have gotten some great footage of the reef, but...not to be

so instead, I went for a little snorkel with the Olympus camera, had a feeling of been there done that, instead I swam back to the boat to see if they could take me ashore with their little run about, but the gears just broke on their engine, so had to wait while they borrowed another from someone on the island, so then I could go ashore and take some idyllic island beach shots

Island life :-)

Evan walking back to the jetty

India and Jacqui on the Jetty, about to get a ride back to the boat

I head out to Nudie beach to get some shots in this nice afternoon light

and as you can see, this is not a sand beach, but a broken up bits of coral beach, as the island has what they call a fringe reef, not the same as the outer reef, but still it has some coral growing on it