Snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef

Just heard on the news that the last 24 hours in this area had "a quarter of a meter of rain'.  In American terms that is 9.8 inches, or about the total annual rainfall at home.

Today after breakfast we headed out wondering if the constant rain and thunder would impact our scheduled tour at the reef.  Hoping for the best, we boarded a large catamaran holding about 200 people, and through the rain we headed for the reef, about 30 miles out.  This took about an hour and a half, where we arrived at a permanent anchored pontoon facility holding snorkel and dive equipment, a kitchen, a variety of seating areas, showers, several semi-submersible boats and even a helipad with helicopter.

As you can see, it is located right up next to Agincourt reef, which made it a marvelous location for snorkeling.  One thing we chose to rent was 'stinger suits', which are Lycra bodysuits complete with with mittens and hoods.   This is not our group, or even where we were, but this is exactly how we looked, plus snorkel and mask:

Jellyfish season is not quite over for another month, and while the deadly box jellyfish are not common that far out, there are some milder ones in the water, as well as some stinging corals.  Speaking of which, our resort is on a four mile beach, which even if it were sunny would be totally empty and isolated right now.  In fact, from November to April the locals don't even walk on the sand because of the box jellyfish.  I cannot imagine a California beach empty like what we see here now.  Even with the suit, the lady next to us got stung on her eyelid when she pulled the mask off getting out of the water.  Fortunately, it was mild and just uncomfortable.  Tom and I had no issues at all.

After the expected chaos of 200 people gathering snorkel equipment and laughing at how absurd we all looked, we got into the water and realized we also all looked pretty much the same, especially in the water.  After figuring out how to keep ourselves in touch with the right person, we headed out and found some of the most beautiful corals and a huge variety of colors and types and sizes.  Tom has all of this on his GoPro camera, which is waterproof, but I cannot access those until later.  I still wanted to give you an idea of what it looked like, so I borrowed these photos from the Internet:

Yes, the blue staghorn coral really is that color.

Our weather continued rainy and cloudy for most of the day, but we did get about 45 minutes of sunny patches during the afternoon.  It was wonderful! 🌞🌞. We're tired, but happy to have seen the sun, and very thrilled with having been able to see and snorkel the reef.  It was truly beautiful and awe inspiring.

Happy St. Patrick's day.