Great Barrier Reef - (Yorkey's Knob)

 Great Barrier Reef (Cairns and Port Douglas)
Yorkey’s Knob

We now have traveled through the Timor Sea and the Arafura Sea, where the Indian Ocean meets the Pacific Ocean. We are now in the Coral Sea, at the top of the Great Barrier Reef, in Queensland Australia. A special ship pilot was required to come on board to assist our ship captain in guiding the ship through the reef. He boarded our ship in Darwin. We learned a lot of interesting facts and stories of the Great Barrier Reef and also of the many shipwrecks from him.

There was a news story on CNN news just today regarding the Great Barrier Reef, that said the north end of the Great Barrier Reef is dying because of bleaching, which means the waters are too warm due to global warming and the living coral is in danger of dying. Seems as though more of the reef will someday be affected as well. Sad to hear.

The Great Barrier reef  is home to over a third of the planets colorful coral.  Most of the information on the Great Barrier Reef was covered in one of our first blogs when we spent 5 days in Cairns BEFORE our cruises began.

The weather is still pretty warm and humid, but we can tell its just a tad bit cooler, now that we’re heading further away from the equator.

Since our Bali portion of our trip was canceled, we are spending 2 days at Yorkey’s Knob, which is just where we docked. It is right in between Cairns and Port Douglas, but anchored out in the water, not docked in any town. Tender boats took us ashore to do any tours in Cairns or Port Douglas.

Our ship anchored off Yorkey's Knob

 The first day we took a bus tour that took us to Port Douglas just to look around and visit the beautiful little town. It had a resort town feel.

We had a real good lunch in Port Douglas, and took just a few pictures.

Patio furniture?...Made out of 55 gallon oil drums.

On Day 2 at Yorkey's Knob, Gene went snorkeling for the second time at the Great Barrier Reef .

 I chose to stay on the ship. He enjoyed it, and was hoping to see more fish than the first time he snorkeled a month ago, but the water was choppy and it rained for a short time.

This is hard rain hitting the ocean waters (taken by Gene-WHILE snorkeling.)

so the underwater visibility wasn’t the greatest, but he did get a few great photos.

Gene got some pretty good pictures, despite the rainy conditions.

Then the next day, Gene went snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef . I chose to stay on the ship. He enjoyed it, and was hoping to see more fish than the first time he snorkeled a month ago, but the water was choppy and it rained, so the underwater visibility wasn’t the greatest, but he did get a few photos.