The (great) Great Barrier Reef

We were up and out the door before 7am this morning to go on an all day cruise around the 2300km Great Barrier Reef. Trevor’s cousin James is a skipper on the ‘Ocean Freedom’ catamaran and treated us to the most wonderful day. Our friend Robyn who we're staying with, came out with us too which was great!


We left the Cairns Harbour at 8am and sailed until we made it to a part of the reef that James’ cat has access to. It was pretty choppy for snorkling but we still went in and saw a huge variety of corals and reef fish.

In Cairns harbour

Some hours later we ate a delicious buffet lunch with lots of smoked salmon, prawns, cold continental meats, bread and salad. After totally filling ourselves we were taken to ‘Upolo Bay’, named after the German trading boat that was wrecked when it ran into the reef and forty people died and only seven people survived. The bay has a flat patch of sand in the middle where people were sunbaking, swimming and snorkling. 


The crew were incredibly helpful and would work to meet every request.


Max and Harry got to sit in the skippers chairs and found out about how to operate a large catamaran which they thought was pretty good! They were both asleep very early tonight!!


We really enjoyed our day – thanks James!!