You know it's been another good day when your son comes up to his mother and gives her a big hug and says 'thank you for an awesome day'. Jeremy has always had good manners, but this came out of the blue, on the spur of the moment, as we were sitting on the deck of our cruise boat on the way back from the reef. Dylan followed his lead, and we have no doubts that they said it because they meant it, and not because they wanted an icypole...

We'd left Port Douglas at 10am this morning. We were aboard Quicksilver's "Wavedancer" sailboat, and we were headed for a day of snorkelling and reef education at a place called Low Isles on the Barrier Reef, just 13km off shore from Port Douglas. It was an hours trip each way. The weather had sort of complied with our request from yesterday, it wasn't raining, but I'd be lying if I told you it was one of those perfect tropical sunny days. It wasn't. It was still cloudy and grey, and we knew it would rain sooner or later, but it was balmy and warm. The water was 26 degrees, and perfect for snorkelling.They'd told us the seas would be rough, and we'd all taken Travelcalm seasick tablets, but when we got out of the port, it was a really nice trip. There was a swell, but not big, and certainly not rough. There weren't even any white caps. In total, there were 20 tourists on board a vessel that would normally take 100, and 8 staff to look after us. We almost felt like we had the boat to ourselves. On the way out, we had a presentation from a Marine Biologist about the different types of coral and sea life we could expect to see, and how to observe without interfering with the reef. Then the safety supervisor gave us a talk on how and where we could snorkel, and the best way to see the things we wanted to see, and do it safely. He would be watching us the entire time from the beach, and had a rubber dingy if anyone needed any help at any stage. They suggested, almost insisted, that we still wear the lycra stinger suits, even though the season has just ended, because there's always the chance of some late finishing stingers hanging around. That would be a sure way to end the trip...

Low Isles are two very small coral cay islands just off the coast. One has a lighthouse and is inhabited by a National Parks Ranger, and the other is full of mangrove trees, and goes completely underwater at high tide. It's uninhabited. (Probably didn't need to explain that huh?). The islands form part of the Great Barrier Reef, and are a sea turtle breeding sanctuary. Once the eggs hatch on the mainland, many of the baby and juvenile turtles end up here, learning to survive before making their way out into the true ocean. We saw four turtles today. There are also all the fish you expect on a reef, angel fish, parrot fish, nemo fish and butterfly fish... The list is very long, but you know what I mean. The coral are also what you expect to find on the reef, but being this close to shore, the water isn't as clear, and the coral colours are more subdued. If you've ever been snorkelling on the outer barrier reef, or at some of the pacific islands, this comes a very long way from second place behind what you've seen already... We had an advantage here though, in that it was very low tide, and the water was very shallow and the fish really didn't have any where to go to get away from us looking at them. In fact, very rarely was there a spot where we wouldn't have been able to stand up if we needed to, although we weren't allowed to stand on the coral.

The island we used, with the lighthouse, is very small, and you could walk around it in ten minutes. It has a sandy beach right the way around, and the coral went from the waters edge, right out to deeper water. At low tide (like we saw today), lots of the coral is exposed above water until the tide comes back in. Quicksilver has a small pontoon permanently moored off the reef, which the cruise boat pulls up against, and a smaller boat takes you to the beach. There's also a glass bottom boat for tours over the coral if you don't want to snorkel. There were very few people on the cruise today, so like the boat, we felt like we had the island and reef to ourselves. The rain moved in while we were on the beach, but we just moved under an umbrella, and ignored it. Jeremy and I went snorkelling for a while, and Dylan played at the waters edge and in the sand, while Jo watched. While we were snorkelling, Jeremy and I swam right over the top of a huge stingray, which we hadn't noticed until we were on top of it, and in our mad dash to get further away from it, we swam right over the top of another one... This freaked us out a bit, as the water was only shallow, and we could have touched them by reaching out with our hands. We all know what happened to Steve Irwin when he was swimming with stingrays, which is all we could think about. We might as well have watched Jaws on the way over, that's how quick we turned and headed back to the beach...

We had lunch on Wavedancer, sort of a tropical smorgasboard set up, did a glass bottom boat tour, and spent a bit of time walking around the island enjoying a reef and coral explanation with the Marine Biologist. The time just flew by. The sun came out later in the afternoon, and it got quite hot, and before we knew it, we were being bundled back on Wavedancer for the trip home. It was a great day. On the way back, we spent the whole voyage on the front deck in the sun and wind, listening to one of the crew play his guitar and sing songs. He was good too...

The objective of the day was to expose the boys to the Great Barrier Reef, and get them up and close with it, to experience it before it's gone. They deserve to see it in person, rather than on tv, and there's no guarantee they'll be able to do that forever. We selected the cruise to the Low Isles because it included a beach where Dylan and Jo could both enjoy their time without being confined to the boat or a floating pontoon. A trip to the outer reef, which would have been better snorkelling, meant that they'd have to have spent all their time on board, as we knew Dylan wouldn't want to snorkel that much. He'd want to play in the water, but not away from dry land. This was the perfect compromise, and although the weather wasn't perfect, we were still able to enjoy the day to it's full potential, and see what we came to see. We arrived home with that tired but satisfied, weary feeling, you know when you're salty and sandy, but it's been a good time and you're just glad to be home... Well, that's us. We had a quick chinese for dinner, and I've hooked the car up for an extra early start tomorrow. The World Series Ironman is in Cairns and Port Douglas tomorrow, and the entire Cook Highway is closed from 9am. We need to be out of Port Douglas, heading north, before then... It's not too long a drive either...

See you in Cooktown...