Snorkelling on Great Barrier Reef opens up a colourful world

Snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef is an adventure even travellers of a certain age can enjoy.

A snorkeller on the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland.

I’m off for a day of snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef with Wavelength, one of the smaller operators among the sleek, motorised catamarans that set out from the marina in Port Douglas, about an hour’s drive north of Cairns. Conditions are ideal as we embark for the Opal outer reef, about 48km off the coast. Skipper Mike tells us the wind is a mild 10 knots and there’s not too much “motion on the ocean”. The horizon is glistening ahead and soon the mountains overlooking Port Douglas are fading from view, through gradual shades of blue like the washes of a watercolourist.

I last saw the reef more than 10 years ago while scuba-diving. Despite my best efforts, I’ve since progressed to an older demographic and it raises alarm while trying to book today’s jaunt.

An email comes zinging back, explaining the trip is an “adventure” experience and they need assurance I’m fit for the challenge and unlikely to have a heart attack, among other inconveniences. A future looms of only viewing the reef from glass-bottomed boats. No, it’s too soon for that. I fire off a response thanking them for their concern, adding that while I don’t pretend 60 is the new 40, one of the benefits of reaching a certain age is the ability to make prudent choices about which activities to join and which to sit out.

I’m accepted and take my place among 43 trippers being briskly equipped with a wetsuit, fins, snorkel and mask. No one looks especially adventurous. Our crew consists of four young women. Carly, Alicia and Johanna each have marine science experience and Robyn is the photographer.

Action above and underwater on the Wavelength reef cruise.

Not wanting to be the sad old guy heaving over the side, I have downed a couple of sea sickness pills with breakfast at my hotel. Now I’m wondering if Carly has been taking chirpy pills. Everything is “awesome”, “fabulous” and “all good” as she runs through reef etiquette, but I can’t help but like her.

Carly’s best advice is that snorkelling should be more like visiting an art gallery than running a marathon. Stop and look; don’t flap about and scare the fish. If you see a green turtle, display non-threatening body language and avoid too much eye-contact, though I’m not sure a turtle could really see my eyes through a snorkel mask.

We arrive at the first mooring and the group is keen to hit the water. I hang back to allow the others to get going and marvel at our flock of snorkellers tootling about so far out to sea with heads down, bottoms buoyantly up, green plastic breathing pipes breaking the surface like toy periscopes.

It’s my turn to launch and as I push off I’m struck, as ever, by the weirdness of breathing underwater and that I can actually do this. It reminds me of learning to ride a bike and being halfway across a paddock before realising my sister is no longer steadying the seat from behind. I’m flying on my own. The ocean floor is about 10m below and the initial impression is of a brown world of giant, neglected vegetables with huge boulders like old cauliflowers and jutting shelves that could be enormous mushrooms.

This is the limestone support structure the delicate coral polyps secrete to live on, and which they sustain.

Wavelength Reef cruises offers small group snorkelling tours on the reef.

How could creatures so small make something so massive? There may be prettier reefs across the world but nothing can match the scale of the Great Barrier Reef, the largest living thing on earth. As my eyes adjust, the subtle colours emerge — dusky pinks and mauves, ochres and muted greens — along with the various textures and tendrils of the coral. Tiny iridescent blue damselfish flitter about, beneficiaries of a local fishing industry that has curtailed their natural predators. Further down, the fish increase in size with the depth, from pan-sized, to prize-sized, to something near the bottom that would take a wheelbarrow to shift. I think it’s a trevally.

Future snorkel masks may offer augmented reality for instant identification of species, even an uplink to Instagram for bragging rights. I’m happy just to gaze in ignorant wonder, quietly floating, occasionally flipping a fin so the lookout on the boat won’t think I’ve expired, focusing on a pair of dark blue clams with gaping lips trimmed in a black and green pattern as sharp as an expressionist woodcut.

One of the attractions of this excursion is the promise of seeing vibrant parts of the reef. But there’s no avoiding a pile of bleached staghorn coral on the ocean floor, like a tangle of amputated antlers. Covered with a fine grey crust, this coral will not be reviving, a casualty of the sustained higher water temperatures of recent summers.

Climbing back onboard for morning tea proves tricky. My fins just bend and swish. I’m looking befuddled until a young bloke kindly suggests I haul myself up backwards, hooking my heels into the rungs. Of course. I used to know that. We refuel on brownies, fruit and cheesecake. After an all-important head count, Mike moves us to a “garden site” nearer the surface than our first stop, more brightly coloured and, again, in potpourri shades.

There’s something disconcerting about coral up close as it spreads before me like pulsating cabbages, or an array of mad felt hats.

A Great Barrier Reef local.

Others in the group are being guided by crew members in search of Nemo, or one of his 17 cousin varieties of clown fish, and there are sightings of a shark and a ray.

It’s time for a vegetarian lunch break and Alicia gives a science talk on the damaged state of the entire Great Barrier Reef. She finds hope in a mass spawning event of November last year, but the situation is sobering.

I feel fortunate to be seeing some healthy bits and change my mind about slacking off and skipping the day’s final foray. We anchor beside a chunk of reef shaped like a miniature mountain. It’s the deepest site so far and there are clams as big as bathtubs. Swaying way below is an imposing spotted sweetlip, much larger than usual. With a luscious mouth and plump body of striking black and white polka-dots, it could be an extra dressed for Moulin Rouge. A would-be fashion fish.

Then, thump. I’m blind-sided by a beefy codger who doesn’t even notice he’s hit and run. I go under and suddenly I’m swallowing water rather than breathing air. I guess this is the adventure part. As I swim back to the boat, I’m thinking the general abundance of fish I’ve seen on past reef visits has declined. But hiding beneath the hull is a shoal of well-grown Maori wrasse, suspended in effortless stillness with their grumpy resting faces pointing in my direction. Apparently fish can remember and are smarter than we think.

If two million tourists were snooping around your place every year, wouldn’t you be inclined to keep out of sight?

Heading back to port we’re placid from exertion, yet still buzzing. In a nice touch, Mike and the crew line up on the dock to wave us off.

■wavelength.com.au