Jer got up with the alarm at 5 am and made tea. Jess got up somewhat later, and we both got ready quickly and went out to see the sunrise. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to see other than some pink in the sky, as bushfires to the east made the horizon smoky. So we chatted with the desk guys at the Bellview for a few minutes, then went back upstairs to have our breakfast - unsurprisingly, this consisted of tea, yogurt, orange-poppyseed muffins for Jess and a lamb kebab ramen cup (which wasn't very good) for Jer. We packed our bags and got ready to head down to the Marlin Jetty.
We arrived at Reef Experience 4 minutes before boarding even started, so we hung out on the dock until it was time to check in. We were given our forms to fill out, then sent to the upper deck with the rest of the overnighters; daytrippers stayed on the main deck. We had some tea and sandwiches and met our fellow passengers - there were 7 of us overnighting. At 8 am the boat headed out to the reef; enroute there were safety briefings and a marine life talk. At 9:45 am we met up with Reef Encounter, our liveaboard vessel, which was anchored off Hastings Reef. (A crewmember told Jess that this was the "wild side" of the reef, the outer edge where the waves sweep back toward the coral - the ship can only anchor off that side if the seas are exceptionally calm, yay!)
We were welcomed aboard Reef Encounter, given a quick procedural briefing and then shown to our cabin. (We had 309, a reasonablyspacious double on the upper deck.) We settled in and got changed into our swimsuits for the 10:30 am snorkel session. The Great Barrier Reef is amazing - it's a riot of colors and textures. We saw brain coral, fan coral, staghorn coral and lots more, with colorfulgiant clams studded here and there. Among the many, many fish we saw were triggerfish, angelfish, sergeant majors, clownfish (Nemo!), parrotfish and wrasses (we even saw "cleaning stations" where cleaner wrasses eat dead skin and parasites off the bigger fish).
Jess got a foot cramp and had to come back in a bit early, but Jer snorkeled until the crew called him back to the boat. We dried off and got back into our clothes, then headed downstairs when lunch was announced. We had tasty beef stew over rice, which was filling but not heavy. Then we went back to our room for a bit, so Jer could download the morning's photos and Jess could lie down for a few minutes.
All to soon, the announcement came for the 1 pm snorkel and scuba briefing. We listened to a short presentation about taking an introductory guided dive, but decided we were happy snorkeling. So, we went back up to our room and got into our gear, then headed out for the 1:30 pm snorkel. Jess enjoyed this one even more, as she felt more comfortable after a bit of practice. We saw even more types of coral and fish, including 5 huge parrotfish (we could even hear them chewing underwater!) and a unicornfish. The seas were amazingly clear and calm, and the coral was close enough to the surface that everything was easy to see, but far enough down that we didn't have to worry about kicking it as we swam over the surface.
We were the last folks back on the boat, and once we were aboard the crew hauled up the anchors to move to our next dive site. We got dressed, walked around the boat a bit (checking out the sundeck and, from afar, the jacuzzi and the helipad), then went down to the lounge. Jer had tea and Jess had Milo (the Aussie brand of hot cocoa), and Jess updated his journal. Jer wasn't feeling great so he went upstairs, and Jess found him standing on the upstairs foredeck, as we approached our second dive site, Norman Reef. Even from above, the reef is colorful - the blue of the sea gives way to greens and browns, making it easy to spot (even from space, we're told).
At 4pm, we had the choice of a glass-bottom boat tour or more snorkeling - guess which we chose. Jer saw a sea turtle as we were going down to get in. Jess had trouble getting into the water, as they hadn't yet lowered the dive platform with the ladders, and she doesn't like jumping into the water. A friendly crewmember came down and lowered her in, and we were off! There were tons more clams at Norman Reef, many of which seemed embedded in the pink, yellow, blue or green coral around them. We saw many more enormous parrotfish, as well as big wrasses and large angelfish. There were schools of little blue fish and little green fish, plus several varieties of tangs, smaller wrasses and damselfish. The coral was closer to the surface here than at Hastings Reef, making everything even easier to see. Jer was free-diving left and right, taking pictures of anything that stayed still long enough (and a few things that didn't). After about 40 minutes, Jess came in, but (as usual) Jer snorkeled for as long as possible. He saw a titan triggerfish attack an octopus, which squirted ink to get away from the attacker.
We had a quick shower before dinner; since we weren't doing the night scuba, we'd had our last snorkel of the day. We walked around the deck before dinner, watching the big fish gather outside the kitchen, waiting for scraps. Eventually we were called to dinner, which was delicious coconut-almond crusted fish in a cream sauce with lemon and dill, served with peas, carrots and potatoes. We watched the sun set over the Great Barrier Reef from the dining room.
Afterwards, we went out on deck to see if we could spot sharks off the dive deck (which is illuminated). Boy, did we ever. We didn't see a ton of them but we did see a fairly large one (6-7 feet long) catch and eat a fish. Wow, they're fast. We started getting chilly in the cool sea breeze, so we headed inside to have a cup of Milo and try to identify some of the fish we'd seen (with limited success). When the divers came back, we had a fruit and pudding dessert. Before too long, we started getting sleepy after a very full day, so we headed back to our cabin and slid into bed.