We did the Great Barrier Reef outer reef tour in Cairns. The first destination was the Fitzroy Island where by you had about 2 hrs to explore. Not ample time really since there were a lot of people about. Don’t neglect to bring insect repellant given that there are lots of biting insects about. Snorkelling from the beach area was okay, despite the fact that it was nothing astonishing.
After that it’s off to the outer reef (Norman Reef) and their pontoon. As other people have noted, it’s quite small for the multitude of passengers on the cruise. The alleged underwater viewing area was a disappointment – I have seen better in the aquariums in Melbourne or Perth . They have not bothered to clean the windows so it wasn’t easy to view anything at all through it. My wife stated the same thing about their glass bottom boat tour which I didn’t get to do on the grounds that we just simply ran out of time.
After the scuba-doo, I went for a scuba dive. It was probobly because it was the monsoon season but the waters wasn’t as clear as I’d hoped . Maybe it really is different when you do a specialist dive cruise but with this form of cruise, you don’t get too many choices. Corals were more of the boring and brown colors. Fish, while there were tons, were practically nothing out of the ordinary. Then to top if off, my divemaster just swum around in circles, not even going out of his way to show me anything special.
By the time the dive was finished, I had just ample time to eat and change (if my wife had not set aside lunch for me, there was none left) – therefore, I missed the semi-sub ride. If it wasn’t for the scuba-doo, this would have been a remarkably forgettable Cairns Tour .
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