Our Last Connections Trip Stop - Cairnes (part 1)

After shedding a small tear about being at our last stop and no longer having rides on Eliza (our bus) ahead of us, our group got ready to experience Cairnes and it’s awesome weather for our last 2 nights.

We arrived late in Cairnes the first night, so we just went straight to our hotel - which was right in the city center (sweet!). We headed to bed early as we had a big day in Cairnes ahead of us...

We didn’t get to do anything real exciting for our day in Cairnes...except head out to the Great Barrier Reef to swim, snorkel and scuba dive! This was amazing. We headed out from Cairnes Harbour early in the morning, hopped on a catamaran with a whole bunch of other people and headed our for about a two hour ride to the reef itself. Once there, we got the chance to dive at two different locations - the first in a relatively shallow reef along side a sand island that had formed in the middle of the ocean. We got dropped off on the beach and were able to dive as we pleased for almost two hours, exploring the reefs and marine life (mostly exotic fish).

Kristen was a bit nervous to snorkel, so she started our time at the first stop with a glass bottom boat tour that took her over giant clams and Nemo the clownfish. She also got to see sea cucumbers, parrot fish, mini barracuda, and some super bright blue coral. After the glass bottom boat, and an amazing lesson and bit of calming, Matt took Kristen out for a snorkel. Kristen, naturally, did great - we got to see a bunch of parts of the reef and even ended swimming a couple hundred meters from the beach out to where the boat had anchored. Kristen’s favorite part was swimming through a school of brightly colored parrot fish.

We hopped back aboard the boat for a great buffet lunch as we headed to the second dive location - which was at the edge of the reef. This was also amazing, but quite a bit different from the first dive - both in terms of sights and the waves.

We both enjoyed more snorkeling here - including getting to see where the reefs end and the seabed dives straight down...into the abyss... We also got to see Dory, the blue angel fish, and some more reefs. Some of the fish we saw here were a couple feet long - including the Great White Shark that attacked the group but Matt beat up (therefore saving numerous lives)... Okay, that last part was a bit exaggerated, but the fish were large.

Later on we got back on the boat to head back into Cairnes...where we had an exciting last night as a group ahead of us.