Great Barrier Reef (8/29/2025)

Friday, August 29, 2025

Today was our excursion to the Great Barrier Reef, the planet's largest coral reef system.

Sunlover Reef Cruises catamaran takes us 90
minutes to its Moore Reef Pontoon

Heading out, we passed HMAS (His Majesty's Australian
Ship) Adelaide III (2010-2012), a helicopter landing dock ship, 
the largest ship constructed for the Royal Australian Navy (KSS)

We headed due east into the Coral Sea (KSS)

The top deck of the pontoon at Moore Reef, one
of more than 3,000 reefs covering
344,400 sq km/134,634 sq miles

Our first activity was aboard the glass-bottom boat

View through the glass bottom with a
Caesio teres/Yellow-tail Fusilier (KSS)

Soft corals are flexible (KSS)

Blue branching coral is a hard coral as it forms a rigid
skeleton; it is the combination of skeletons that form the reef

For more money, you could take a helicopter over the reef

Our next activity was the semi-submersible...

...where the view was not as good as the glass bottom boat

Some leaf plate corals

So much of the coral already appeared bleached (white or gray), caused by rising water temperatures, making them vulnerable to starvation and disease.

The semi-submersible boat

A buffet lunch was provided

Salads, fruit, and prawns on lower left

Sunlovers may be the only reef pontoon with a water slide

Oops, already splashed into the water!

Kent, in foreground, readies to snorkel

And he is off!

Kent had an underwater camera (KSS)

Find the Scolopsis bilineata/Two-lined Monocle Bream (KSS)

Pink Pocillopora meandrina/Cauliflower Coral (KSS)

Thalassoma hardwicke/Hardwicke or Six-bar Wrasse (KSS)

Mystery pink blob in soft coral (KSS)

Chlorurus sordidus/Bullethead Parrotfish (KSS)

Chaetodon melannotus/Blackback Butterflyfish (KSS)

Abudefduf sexfasciatus/Scissortail Sergeant (KSS)

Chlorurus microrhinos/Steephead Parrotfish (KSS)

Plenty of space to relax on the observation deck

Folks in the snorkeling zone are mere specks

Whoa! ...a breaching whale, likely a
Megaptera novaeangliae/Humpback Whale

A couple crew members repair ropes

Fish feeding time (KSS)

Feeding frenzy:

Mostly Caesio teres/Yellow-tail Fusiliers are feeding

Now we are in the pontoon's underwater observatory

Caranx ignobilis/Giant Trevally

Returning to Cairns (KSS)

Had dinner at Mykonos Restaurant

Mixed chicken and lamb souvlaki

Falafel

Next: Kuranda I.