Great Barrier Reef

We headed out on a small boat to the Great Barrier reef for the day. It was a lot of fun. Despite the cloudy weather the water was still quite warm for snorkeling. The boat parked just off Green Island where we got to hang out for a couple of hours too. All very nice, but the snorkeling was no better than the reefs we saw in Ningaloo or in Thailand. The only difference, of course, was that you were on the largest reef system in the world, but it's very hard to get a sense of scope for this. I didn't get a marine camera this time, so no cool underwater photos. I was hoping to see really brightly coloured corals on the reef, but I didn't and was told why later. It turns out that red colours don't travel that well under water, so everything turns up as shades of blue and green and it isn't until you bring really strong lights down underwater that you get to bring up the colours - in other words the reef will only ever look colourful in photographs ... what a disappointment!