We were all up early and drove in to Port Douglas to do the outer reef snorkelling tour with a company called Calypso. The day dawned bright and still which was ideal for snorkelling!

Everyone boarded “Bubbles”, our vessel for the day, and we commenced the 1.5hr journey out to the outer Great Barrier Reef. There are over 2000 reefs that make up the Great Barrier Reef – the 2 reefs we were snorkelling today were Opal and Tongue Reefs – 1 site at Tongue and 2 sites at Opal – an hour at each site with morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea between each!

The trip out was a bit choppy as the wind had already picked up – Trev sat with Rosie as she was feeling a little queasy and helped to take her mind off it while she ate copious amounts of Arrowroot bikkies!

We arrived at Tongue Reef and jumped in – the reef was amazing – corals of all different shapes, sizes and colours…. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the snorkel despite the choppiness of the water.

Morning tea with homemade slices and tropical fruit was great then on to Opal Reef – this time it was a bit more protected from the swell and again both sites were beautiful representations of healthy coral reefs – myriads of fish of all sizes and colours, giant clams and beautiful shells – the pictures do not do justice to the diverse and spectacular sight of the underwater garden.

As always someone had to have a slight mishap – no surprise when Gordie took a chunk out of his arm on the handrail of the boat…. And then added a coral abrasion to his ankle while trying to keep Kerrie safe (that was his excuse anyway!!)….the abrasion so happened to be on the same foot that 2 days ago sustained a puncture wound from a stick as we walked down Morehead River bed where we had been free camping – unmentioned on the blog until now but sorely in need of Branch’s attention….

Lunch of salads, cold meats and fruit and afternoon tea with homemade brownies all went down well. The wind picked up a lot more in the afternoon and the ride home was very entertaining with a big swell and lots of spray….we arrived back safely at the port having had a great time exploring another magnificent example of God’s handiwork!