Up early for a day of sailing & snorkelling on the barrier reef. Our boat had around 30 people on it, not too crowded which was lovely. It took 1.5 hours to get to our first stop on Opal Reef where we would spend the day snorkelling at three sites. The sea was very bumpy on the way out with lots of people unwell. The boat has a small crew mostly marine biologists, en route we were given a great overview on the corals & the fish we would see. Our guide used to be a banker in London, nice career change!
We settled at our first stop, wetsuits, flippers & snorkels on & straight in to explore the reef. It is breathtakingly beautiful with so many different types of fish, some tiny, others huge, such a peaceful place to be. After an hour in the water we moved to the second site around 10 minutes away, very different to the first site, snorkelling in shallow & deep water you had to be careful not to touch the coral. We joined a guided talk, we held a two foot long sea cucumber, like a sponge but very smooth & soft! We held a mushroom coral, hard on the outside with the coral protected inside so no harm done. We saw the anemone (clown) fish, lots of different varieties but our guide found Nemo for us! Ironically due to the success of the film, there was a huge demand for clown fish so they more or less disappeared from the reef. They can now breed them so the numbers are coming back to the reef, kind of sad that the films message about keeping fish in aquariums is lost!
We joined an environmental talk over lunch, learned about the bleaching of the reef & coral, largely due to climate change. I hadn't realised that a colourful coral is a stressed coral, where greens & browns are good. Sadly we saw lots of vibrant blue as a result of the high temperatures (31-32), on the reef last summer. The coral can recover but global warming is causing irreparable damage.
We visited our third stop, quite bizarre to see waves breaking in shallow waters over the reef in the middle of the ocean, with some corals sticking up out of the water. The final site was awesome with a huge fish bowl you could swim in to, so many beautiful fish in big shoals, also a few very rare species. You could also swim off the reef shelf which headed off a 20m gradual downward slope in to deep deep water, very different fish living out there. Closer to the boat we saw a huge Maori Wrassi, 2 metres long, he was incredibly friendly & swam right next to me - he's covered in goo so you can't touch him in case you damage him - incredible! We saw giant clams over 100 years old, when open their insides are stunning vibrant blues & greens!
We had an hour and a half sail back to port to finish off a memorable day - definitely in my top 10 of incredible experiences! So pleased to have seen such a beautiful place.
A couple of beers at the port & home for a dip in the pool before heading out for dinner - after a day of swimming we were both worn out & ready for bed!