We woke up just before our 6 am wake-up call (really, a knock on our door), and got ready as quickly as we could, given the early hour. By 6:30 we were out on the deck of Reef Encounter, getting into our gear for a pre-breakfast snorkel. The water was cooler than we expected, and Jess was glad that she'd rented a wetsuit. It was low tide, so we were even closer to the coral this morning than we'd been the previous afternoon. We saw many of the smaller fish this morning, like damselfish (both neon and blue-green varieties), tetras, tangs and small angelfish. We also saw more parrotfish and triggerfish, plus some barred longtoms. On our way back to the boat, we finally ran across the huge green humphead Maori wrasse, called Frankie by the crew, who allows divers to pet him.
After a half-hour, we headed back to the boat and got dressed, then headed down to breakfast. We had toast, tea and cereal (plus Jess had juice); there were also fruit crepes, but we decided those might be a bit heavy, as the seas were a little choppy. We chatted with our fellow passengers for a bit, then returned to our room to pack our bags, as the ship moved to a slightly different spot on Norman Reef.
Jess wasn't sure she wanted to join the 8:30 am snorkel due to the choppy water, but Jer decided he'd rather deal with that than stay on the rocking boat. So out we went, with Frankie greeting us on our way in. There was a strong current that brought us right to the coral. We saw a half-dozen huge double-headed parrotfish, along with a number of smaller parrotfish varieties. Among the mix, there was a small school of unicornfish, a larger school of sergeant majors and a number of bluelined surgeons. Jess got water in her mask that she couldn't get out, so she ended up coming back sooner than she wanted, but Jer stayed in to watch Frankie and the other fishies.
Back on the boat, we changed back into our clothes. Jer got a motion-sickness tablet and went to sit on the sundeck, while Jess had some tea indoors. She joined Jer out on the deck, and we decided to skip the 10:30 am snorkel as it was still a bit choppy at Norman Reef, and we'd been told that our afternoon spot was likely to be Breaking Patches, a really nice snorkeling location. We had some tea, chatted with other passengers and watched the snorkelers and scuba divers go in (one crewmember did a running jump known on the boat as a "salmon") and eventually come out again.
Soon, it was lunchtime. We had quiche (Jess quite liked her Mexican one, Jer thought his spinach and bacon one was good but a bit heavy) and chatted with a new passenger, an Irish dive instructor named Sarah. She told us about the different types and levels of dives, which Jess found very interesting. All too soon, though, it was time to transfer to Reef Experience for our trip back. Rather than linking the two ships with a gangway as they had when we came aboard, the crew loaded us (and our bags) into Reef Encounter's glass-bottom boat and ferried us over to Reef Experience.
We joined all the daytrippers for the second half of their day, which ended up being two hours at Saxon Reef. As we were approaching the dive site, we saw a hawksbill turtle bobbling around near the boat, which was very cool. Jess spent about half the time in the water and half up on deck (getting a sunburn - doh!), while Jer spent the entire time in the water (also getting a sunburn - doh!). Unsurprisingly, Jer saw a lot more cool stuff than Jess did. We both saw some new types of parrotfish (including bicolorand midnight) and some cool map pufferfish, plus tangs, angelfish (including Moorish idols), wrasses and triggerfish (including big titan triggerfish). Additionally, Jer saw two whitetip reef sharks (or the same one twice, it's hard to tell) and a hawksbill turtle up close; Jess was jealous.
Eventually, all the divers and snorkelers came back onboard, and the crew put out cheese, crackers, fruit and wine for the return trip to Cairns. Although the seas were fairly calm, there was just enough chop that we kept getting hit by the spray as Reef Experience whizzed back. (She's a very fast catamaran.) All too soon, we were back at the Marlin Jetty. Reef Encounter was a great liveaboard - nice rooms, good food and really enthusiastic, helpful staff; we would highly recommend it to anyone visiting Australia and wanting to spend time at the Great Barrier Reef!
We made a quick stop into the Reef Fleet Terminal to change into our clothes, then walked back to the Bellview. We checked in and were given Room 38, which was similar to (but slightly nicer than) our previous Room 5. We showered, put on aloe and salve, and rested for a bit before venturing out.
We were too tired to go for a big dinner, so we decided to try Bellview and chatted with the desk clerk about getting out to the Cairns Tropical Zoo. He gave us a discount flyer and told us about the city bus pickups, but it so happens that he grandfather used to run the zoo and our clerk worked there as a kid, so he had lots of fun stories to tell. We enjoyed chatting with him, but we were all tuckered out, so we had to wrap up and head to bed early.