The Great Barrier Reef, Australia

Today was a fantastic day!

In my last post I mentioned I’m traveling the East Coast of Australia. At the end of the trip, I will make a post of the spots I visited on my way down including all the highlights. Some experiences (like this one) can’t be passed without a post of its own!

The Great Barrier Reef is listed as one of the Seven Natural Wonders of The World. It is the worlds largest coral system and the worlds biggest structure created by living organisms. Today was my day to go there and explore!

We chose a sail boat for our trip as we knew the crowd would be smaller. There were only 12 of us on the boat including the captain and two instructors. It was fantastic as the instructors could focus on all of us equally.

The boat ride out to the reef was not good for me. I suffered sea sickness the whole way out, it wasn’t nice! :( I have never been sea-sick before so I thought it was rather strange.. But at least I got to see dolphins riding through the waves behind us! That was really cool!

There are many different reefs, we went to the outer reef called Upolu Reef. I have never been snorkeling before, I’ve never worn the funny mask and the flippers on my feet. It took a while for me to get used to it. I felt nervous and a bit weak (from getting sick), so the instructor stayed with me the entire time of area one.

Under the sea is so magical! I was amazed. I was in awe the whole entire time!! In the reef, there are so many different color corals and fish. I especially loved the turtles. The fish swim so smoothly swishing along and the turtles look so relaxed like their floating through a breeze, the corals looked as though they were glowing, some of them were luminously gleaming! The water glittered as the sun beams down through the reef where I found Nemo (of course), hanging out atop a coral waiting for his next adventure. If you haven’t seen Finding Nemo before you explore The Great Barrier Reef, go see it because you will instantly recognize all the fish on the reef once you know the characters in the movie.

The instructor was fantastic. He would dive down deep to pick up star fish and sea cucumbers to pass around to the group. The textures of the different types of sea urchins were very interesting! We booked with Reef Daytripper if you would like to check them out on their website, we paid a very reasonable price for what we got. I was very happy we picked Reef Daytripper!

When we got to the second area of the reef, I felt confident to go explore without the instructor. I was as good as gold again! My partner and I went in our own direction where we discovered many large schools of fish performing aquatics amongst each other. Not only did we see all these beautiful, friendly sea creatures.. we saw a reef shark!! He was following us! He was scary! But they are harmless sharks Phew!

I didn’t avail of getting the underwater camera as I wanted to focus all my time on looking, and experiencing the underworld.. and because it was expensive! But there are loads of pictures online which show the underwater sea life that are exactly what I saw today. Use #greatbarrierreef on Instagram to see more interesting photos!

There are so many words I could use to describe my experience, but words really don’t do it justice. Its something you will need to experience yourself to truly understand.

It’s a once in a lifetime experience. Thats one more thing ticked off the bucket list! I think this East Coast road trip is going to be the most spectacular part of my Australian experience. I’m delighted tho be able to share my experiences through this blog and I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoy sharing.

Lots of Bubbles!