Saturday, January 5- Whitsunday Islands

We awoke early this morning to this beautiful sunrise. The Terraces 
restaurant opened early- at 5:30AM- for those of us
who were headed out for a day at The Great Barrier Reef. We boarded a catamaran directly from the ship and sailed away. The trip took about an hour. We got a good lesson in water safety and the adventures available. Lots of people from the ship were on this trip. 

After about 30 minutes we arrived at a large pontoon boat which was our home for the stay. There was a diving platform for the divers and snorkelers, a viewing chamber for an up close look at some fish, and there was the ride over the reef that we took.

We had decided not to snorkel but to spend our time in a semi-submersible submarine . We saw many of the beautiful fish we had read about,  and we saw the most colorful coral you would believe. This section of the Great Barrier Reef was big. When the tide is out some of the coral even sticks up above the surface of the water. Since the reef is a living organism, the coral was blue, pink, yellow, green and tan....it also  moved as the water moved along. 

There was a large sea turtle who lives in this portion of the reef. We also saw a large Queensland Grouper who was very colorful. The small fish were such rich colors. I think we could have stayed for days just watching the big schools of fish and the interesting varieties of fish and coral. We used a fish identification card to help us determine what we were seeing.

The water was a beautiful blue-even with so much action with fish and people in the water. This is the season for a kind of jelly fish that has a deadly string so most people in the water wore a wet suit to protect them. 

It was a treat to see something that is such a marvelous work of nature.

We began our journey back to the ship at about 10:45 and the Nautica- 1 1/2 hours appeared on the horizon. She looked good and we were glad to be back "home."