15. Whitsunday Islands and the Great Barrier Reef

Thursday, 25 OCT 2012

We anchored in the bay just off Hamilton Island, one of the islands of the Whitsunday group. Hamilton Island has a settlement with an airport on it, and is the launching point for expeditions out to the Great Barrier Reef. The GBR is actually more than a thousand component reefs, sand islands, and cays that stretches more than 2000 km long from near Brisbane to well north of Torres Straits and the northern-most point of Australia, Cape York. From our anchorage we rode a catamaran out to the edge of the continental shelf, two and a half hours at 40 knots or more, to Knuckle Reef where a company has set up a floating platform as a base for snorkeling, scuba diving, a glass-bottom boat, and a semi-submerged viewing boat.

The MS Volendam anchored off Hamilton Island:

 

The Volendam with one of the catamarans pulling alongside:

Paula enjoying the ride out to Knuckle Reef:

The floating platform on the reef:

The platform has a submerged viewing area. They lower a container of fish food and the denizens flock to it for the amusement of the tourists:

People in the water swimming and snorkeling:

The semi-submersed glass-hulled viewing boat:

The glass-bottom boat:

Yes, we took lots of photos of the reef, but there's no point in showing them here. They are all a monotonous green color. You can find very good reef pictures by professionals who know how to capture the vivid colors that only show up in careful underwater photos using powerful lighting.

Here's another picture of the reef as it appears in colors of turquoise, green, and blue from the top of the platform:

 

Posted from Tyler's iPad