Day 11 - our journey to the Great Barrier Reef

Dave writing here.

Today was the day that I had told my wife, the day that we met, that I was going to go around the world to do. 

Little did I know that 17 years later our family of 4 would be going to see it together. 

Here we are gathered together for our 8 am departure to the Hardy reef. We were able to walk from the super cool hostel / caravan park out to the Airlie Beach port. 

 Saje was able to get a good snuggle in with Monkey up on the top deck while Big C and I kept to the inside where he felt more comfortable.

 He did perk up however when we stopped at Hamilton Island and he got an eye on all of the 'super -yachts' that are anchored here.

 On the advice of one of our many guides we decided to start our day without a line waiting for anything and headed straight for the semi-submersible boat tour. Here we are on the inside:

 We saw some amazing views of the reef from the coral to dozens of species of fish to a sea turtle were truly amazing.

 After our brief trip and our lunch,  we suited up into our stinger suits, snorkels, masks and flippers (plus a boogie board with a viewing window for BigC) to see the reef from above.

It was absolutely breathtaking.

As the fish swam around us in touching distance we could make out so many features of the reef. We could see massive  clams (Monkey's favourite), sea cucumbers that looked about 75cm long on the ocean floor,  countless fish and sea anemone  as well as hundreds of meters of the reef.
All too soon our time enjoying the reef was up and we were headed on our return journey.
As we packed up and got changed our sea turtle friend came back to wave his own goodbye.

Our full day on the water ended with a sunset return to the mainland. 

It us a day that will live in our memories for a lifetime.