Admittedly, that barrier reef is pretty great

Today's adventure had us meeting up with our group just before eight and heading to the spot in town where all the major tourist boats depart. We got on an extremely fast moving passenger boat with three levels. The boat was called Reef Magic. It took us about an hour and a half to get where we were headed- a large pontoon platform out in the middle of the water. That was called Marine World. It was a bit confusing at first, but once we arrived, everything made more sense. 

We immediately proceeded to a line, where we stood for about two minutes. It was for a semi-submerged boat. All passengers were at the bottom part, which was a seating area with glass panels on both sides. We took a 30 minute trip around the area and managed to see a few sharks along the way. The coral was, of course, beautiful. 

 

After we got off the semi-submarine boat, we took a turn on a glass-bottomed boat. Also fabulous. Between the two boats, we saw enough coral to fill up a nature documentary. 

That took us though the first hour of our time on the pontoon platform in the middle of the water. After that, it was almost time for us to get on the helicopter we had booked for 12:15. 

Cas had been on a helicopter once before when he was a kid, but it was a first for me. We both found the ride to be a unique and fabulous experience. It was only a ten minute flight, but seeing the reef from the air was something that no other perspective could quite replicate. 

It was beautiful. It felt a little like we were in a movie or some kind of reality TV show or something- we were inside of a helicopter wearing those headphones, just like you'd imagine. 

After that, the crew of the boat/pontoon platform fed us a big buffet lunch, after which Cas and I refused to wait 30 minutes before swimming. In fact, we almost immediately went to the part of the platform where they had snorkels, masks and flippers. Cas is a lot more of a confident swimmer than I am, so I finished up a lot faster than he did. For me, it was too far from actual land and too overpopulated to spend a lot of time. I snorkeled, then I got out of the water. Cas snorkeled then kept snorkeling. He was having s blast. When he got out of the water, he wanted to point out where he had gone and tell me what he had seen. He certainly went a lot farther out than I made it. 

We're on our big boat heading back to the city, now. I think we could both use a nap and a shower. We shall see if we become energetic enough later to explore Cairns. Be sure to go back to Cas' photos in a little bit- I'm sure he has beautiful things to upload when we get back to the hotel. 

https://goo.gl/photos/oLwWVBiNbo2oR9D59