December 24, 2019 by Chai Vuriti

Snorkelling in Great Barrier Reef

The shuttle services would not start before 9 AM and my Great Barrier Reef tour was at 8:30, I started to take the same route as the previous night walking along the Esplanade with so many beautiful views in sight.

I reached the marina on time and boarded the catamaran. Excited for my first ever experience under the sea, I geared up in a snorkel suit. 

Carins

After more than an hour of journey, when we reached the Norman reef, people started diving and jumping in the sea to experience the beautiful Great Barrier Reef. With no previous knowledge and experience whatsoever, I jumped into the sea to see what was gonna come next. As the catamarans would be anchored around 20 meters away from the reef, I paired up with one more first-timer and swam to the reef with the help of the ship-crew who has a beautiful name, Anais.

There it was. Under the sea. One of the most spectacular visions I have ever seen in my entire life. It was a whole new world out there. I spent more than an hour in the sea snorkelling with the help of the crew. Anais explained to me a bit about the coral reefs and named all the fishes she could. We were lucky to see a sea turtle and a few other species like Nemo, Tigerfish etc. I still do not remember the scientific name for Nemo but let’s just keep it this way.

Whitsunday Islands

I woke up in the morning expecting a message from the tour operator about the cancellation. I checked out of the hostel and met with Rachel. We tried reaching the tour operator but no one answered. We booked a cab and reached the marina to see if the tour was still a go. Lucky for me, the rain was not too heavy and the tour was doable. This had to be one of the most exciting tours as I was going on the fastest boat in the entire Whitsunday Islands.

There I am. In a snorkel-suit, travelling on the fastest boat, against the waves on the sea. The boat was so fast it was airborne for at least 2-3 seconds on every jump against the wave. The skipper was energetic. So were the crew. And so were everyone. It was like an ocean-park ride except that I was actually in the ocean. After almost an hour of travel, we reached the beautiful and breathtaking Whitsunday Islands. The boat was anchored more than 15 meters away from the Haslewood Island Reef. With my previous experience of snorkelling at Norman reef, I still asked Rachel to look out for me but I gained more courage and jumped in the water grabbing a pool noodle. Having completely snorkelled on my own, looking at the ocean life of fishes and reefs under the sea and little showers of rain falling on top of me, I reached a new level of Life at that very moment. It had given me a new vision and a new purpose. And I gained the utmost confidence to do more and more things on my own.

After almost an hour of snorkelling, I swam back to the boat. We went to Whitehaven Beach on the opposite side of the reef for the barbecue lunch and to our surprise, Iguanas visited us. The crew explained to us how these species were conserved safely far away from the beaches but they still managed to find their way back here. The interesting thing about Whitehaven Beach is that it has the whitest and purest sand among the beaches in the world. Although the whitest sand beach I visited was Hyams Beach in Jervis Bay, I still found the Whitehaven Beach exciting because the sand doesn’t get hot even in the hottest summers which I could not experience as it was raining.