Australia, Day 13-14

Joe and I traveled to Cairns yesterday. Unfortunately, it was raining when we got here. We walked around to a couple of stores and ate dinner at a burger place. We called it an early night and went to sleep. 

Today's weather was cloudy, but at least it wasn't rainy! We got up early and walked around the marina some before checking into our Great Barrier Reef cruise. It was a 2 hour boat ride out to the Moore Reef. We got to witness many people get sea sick!

When we got there, we were hoping for some sun, but it never came. Joe and I decided to snorkel first. We rented wet suits because it was kinda cold out on the water! I discovered that it is very difficult to take photos underwater, so I switched to video. 

The reef was not as colorful as I had hoped. Though it's not quite completely bleached, you can see that it is dying. One of the ladies near us said that she came a couple of years ago and that this is dramatically different from what she saw. One of the cool things was how close you were to it! I could reach out and touch it (but they warn you against this) so I just looked. You can apparently be fined a pretty penny (or 2,000) for touching the reef intentionally. 

When we were tired of snorkeling, we came inside and ate some of the lunch buffet (mainly the fruit). After that, we went on the glass bottom boat tour. We got the same type of views that we did snorkeling. 

You can see the reef areas from the boat because of the discoloration of the water. I really wanted to do the helicopter view, but it cost $300 so we opted not to!

We got back around 5:30 and decided to eat at a restaurant that our tour director had suggested. We will be flying back to New Zealand tomorrow!