Reef Encounters

Sharks, Turtles and Patrick in an extra small lycra “stinger suit”…..the Great Barrier Reef has it all.

We booked a tour to the Low Isles on the Wavedancer catamaran and it was amazing!

The trip out took about an hour and a half, the sea was calm and the island was beautiful.

We saw a shark! But only a baby about 12inches long…and we saw several turtles. The highlight was snorkeling over the reef and seeing the coral, fishes and a turtle hiding under the coral, it was wonderful. The only drawback was the stinger suit…which was a little tight fitting (these were issued on board the ship before we were shuttled to the island and I think the crew member was “’aving a larff!” and issued Patrick an extra small suit which he had to swap with my small suit, so we were both rather snug, but glad of the suits as the water temperature was quite cold. After 45 minutes, we were freezing….elated at the sights we saw but frozen to the core!

The package included a great lunch back on the ship and warm coffee.

By the afternoon, the wind had picked up which meant the catamaran could put up its sails and motor back. For those of a certain age, think “Duran Duran Rio Video”. We were sat at the front as the boat was crashing and rolling through the waves with a few splashes keeping us cool in the sun……until along came a huge freak wave! It was a complete shock and drenched all of us at the front of the boat, well mostly Nina who looked like she had been dipped overboard, much to the amusement of others on board! Still it was a great day even though we were left very soggy, thank goodness for spare pants!

Whilst Port Douglas is a pleasant place to be based, we have ventured north to Cape Tribulation and Daintree Forest, with stunning scenery along the way and spectacular beaches which are so clean and inviting. So had a good day out exploring the area.

On Saturday we ventured south to Cairns which had a very nice boardwalk along the front which linked to the Marina. The town was not really somewhere we would go back to again but the beachfront was lovely with an amazing stretch of sand where the tide was out as far as the eye could see.

We also stopped at Palm Cove on the way to check this area out and decided it was worth a second visit as it was a beautiful beach cove with some lovely café’s and restaurants, so we stopped on the way back from Cairns for a drink and happened to be in time to witness 3 different weddings taking place along the beach, which was quite interesting to watch and wonder just how much each one had cost and how long they had been planned…  I’m holding Patrick back from adding ‘suckers’.

Although it has been good to travel around via car, we were fortunate to stay next to the 4 mile beach….and in true Aussie style it is called this because it is 4 miles long! So we ventured out on a pair of bikes and cycled from our villa to the centre of Port Douglas. The challenging part was the receding tide had left high ridges of sand along the beach and this coupled with an exceptionally hard “razor style” saddle left one with a rather sore ‘bum’ but I have to say the ride was worth it!