A day on the reef

Finally after living back in Cairns for the last ten(ish) months Sandy and I have made the effort to go on a reef trip.......why on earth did we wait???

Before boarding the crew take your photo, apparently this is so they know who is on board as there have been a case of people being left offshore (by other operators)

On board and ready to leave

My nephew, Rod, works for Reef Magic as their boss engineer so scored us some cheap tickets for a day trip which was going to include our first ever dive.  Sandy and I had both been a been afraid of trying to dive despite doing loads of snorkelling?

Still calm here

The trip out was a little rough and saw me, the self confessed sailing addict, feeling a little queazy but not nearly as bad as some of those around us, the sick bags we getting quite a workout.  It was a biggish high tide which allows the ocean swell to come over the top of the reef so it was a little rougher than normal.

The intent of the day is to tie the boat to a pontoon that is permanently moored out on Moore Reef.  Unfortunately when we arrived the swell caused the boat to surge against the pontoon with a quite a force and broke shackles and even a bollard off the boat.  A quite rethink saw us use another pontoon that was a little more sheltered so no great problem.

The pontoon we 'should' have used.

You can see the swell breaking on the reef but it wasn't breaking quite enough

The pontoon we couldn't use in the distance.

So stomach settled we got ourselves a wetsuit and jumped in the water for a snorkel.  Life is grand on the reef.  As the tide was on the way out the water smoothed and we had a great swim checking out the coral and fish.

Pontoon life

Our boat

After our snorkel and a spot of lunch we were called for our Introductory Dive.  This is were a dive instructor gives you a crash course in scuba gear and then escorts you under water for about 30minutes.  

The entrance to the dive platform

I absolutly loved it!!!!  It is an incredible feeling that made me regret not having done it before.  Kind of ironic that I grew up in Cairns and never went diving :)

Anyway off we went and Wally, a Giant Maori Wrasse, who normally frequents the original pontoon must have followed the boat over and came in time for use to have a pat.

Our very own 'ill tempered sea wrasse'

Swimming with the fish

He was a bloody big fish

We had a fantastic day and earnt a quiet beer for the trip home which thankfully was much smoother so there we no people throwing up all around us.

Reef Magic provided our magnificent experience today and we couldn't recommend them highly enough.