Green Island

So on the day we had to explore Cairns, we instead decided to go to Green Island. One would think that this is a stupid idea considering we'd made the trip to come and see what Cairns was all about...but if you were in our position you would understand the small amount of boredom we'd had with remaining in a city all day (everyone knows cities come to life at night) and the amount of hype we'd heard about the Great Barrier Reef up north. So to us there was no question about leaving the city for the day to check out the reef. We'd left our hostel at around 9.00 am to reserve our spot on the tour-ferry, the journey estimated to only take 40-45 minutes since the island is only 27 km from shore, and then sat around in nervous anticipation of a reef trip and some snorkelling adventures. There was also an air of relief considering we'd been having slightly cold (25 C) and miserable weather in the days previous, but were blessed with a sunny day and 24 degree water temp. Getting on the ferry (really just an oversized yacht) we'd listened to some briefings about the history of the island, the warnings about the deadly jellyfish which weren't really expected during that season but had to be heeded anyway, and other musings by the tour staff who were really working hard for tips from the pale-faced tourists. Green Island is really only a miniscule dot on the map, and can easily be walked around in under 20 minutes...the attraction of it, however, is the white sand beaches, the lush greenery, the reef that can be easily snorkelled, and the pristine water. It's a location perfectly catering to tourists with helicopter tours available, a small resort that allows overnight accomodation, and a crocodile zoo which exhibits only some of the many crocodiles to be found in that area (not on green island, but in the Cairns region) . Our specific tour booking allowed us time on the island from 10:30 am until 5:00 pm, perfect since we still wanted to spend time experiencing the Cairns nightlife. Marco and Katie enjoyed spending time between sun-bathing, walking the island, and the occasional swimming, while I just frolicked in the water. After all was said and done, I had spent approximately 4 hrs of pure snorkelling time and another hour of just swimming out above the reef until I got tired. Although the fish and wildlife weren't abundant, I still had a few chance-encounters that left me breathless in the water... one of which was being able to follow a stingray from behind. Now, of course this was before the whole Steve Irwin incident with stingrays (which incidentally occured only a couple of hours from where I was) and I was about 2 weeks from discovering that stingrays held any danger at all. But at this time I had seen nothing but a few coloured fish all day and I was insistant on following at least something and getting in touch with the true reef. Luckily enough for me, this particular stingray decided not to stab me with his tail, but instead just sped along faster than I could keep up when he got annoyed with me. It was all rather anti-climatic after that point, and I just enjoyed a bit of scenery in the croc zoo, and some more sun-bathing before the 5 o clock hour had come and it was our time to go. What a great first experience on the reef though, and the weather was nice enough to co-operate for what was to become one of the more memorable events prior to my September vacation. Hope you enjoy the pictures below as well. Cheers. (Oh and a tip for all who haven't realised...if you want to see a picture enlarged, just click on it and it should be fine from there)