SNORKELING!!!!! But first we woke up to unbelievable bird sounds this morning. There are doves, lorikeets, and all kinds of other unidentifiable birds. The crazy thing is that all these teeny tiny birds make huge sounds! Chirps, squacks, squeeks and swoons. The birds wake up at about 4:30 or 5 a.m., which means everyone else wakes up about that time, too :).
On to SNORKELING!!!! We met up with the bus that took us to the marina. We checked in and then hung out on the dock for a few minutes and found archer fish in the water! Later in the day, one of the snorkel guides told us occasionally they see salties in the marina as well. We all saw a strange "v" shape in the water and thought it might be one, but I don't think we were that lucky.
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| Leaving Port Douglas Marina |
Leaving the marina at Port Douglas was really nice - the weather was sunny (partly cloudy) and the water was still and glassy. It took us about an hour and 45 minutes to get out to the first of three snorkel spots.
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| Mangroves outside Port Douglas Marina |
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| View into the ocean from the boat |
As soon as we jumped in the water, we saw a turtle! From there, it was mostly cool fish and corals. There are so many fish here and you can just see the entire reef teeming with life.
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| Swarms of tiny blue fish |
The second snorkel spot was a little deeper and there was quite a bit of sandy areas…usually great for a shark sighting, but no such luck for us. Tons more fish and corals and cool things, but the best thing was when Sylvie and I headed back to the boat before everyone else and were greeted by a humongous napoleon wrasse under the boat. It was huge, at least three and a half feet log and really thick. It was quite taken with Sylvie and me, swimming very close to check us out, even getting almost within arms-reach. It swiveled its huge eye to look at us with each pass. We spent about 10 minutes checking it out. It has to be the biggest fish I've ever encountered.
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| Napolean wrasse |
After lunch on board, we hit the third snorkel spot, which was known for its corals. In fact, they told us National Geographic had been there to check out that same spot and they really enjoyed it. The corals were beautiful - tons of colors and shapes. We even saw an anemone with a teeny clown fish! Near the end of the snorkel, Andrew and I found a bit of a drop off and swam up on a huge puffer fish. It was probably 2.5 - 3 feet long - huge for a puffer. It was being cleaned by some smaller fish.
The trip back to the mainland took a while, as we ended up farther out than the first snorkel spot, so we chatted with the marine biologist on the boat and she was telling us about the conservation efforts to save the reef (preventing mining, further development, etc.) and how interconnected the reef and rainforest habitats are. It was really incredible.
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| Huge clam |
La Salsa was the dinner destination for the evening. Port Douglas seems to be a sleepy town…until meal time and then you can't get a table to save your life! Luckily we went to a spot called La Salsa and they had a spot for us at the bar before dinner.
Tomorrow is our Daintree Rainforest tour. Can't wait!!! (Excuse the lack of photos today; my underwater camera was only taking video the entire first leg and then was only taking very green and blue photos, which don't look great.)
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