You can’t leave Cairns without a visit to the Great Barrier Reef, and we had no intention of missing out. We got up early and arrived at the pier by 8 am (virtually all the day tours start this early) to meet our boat. The crew were of the fun-and-lively tour guide variety similar to the guy we had had the previous day, but there were a great deal more people on the boat, so we pretty much had to entertain ourselves for the one-and-a-half hour trip to Hastings Reef. On the way, everyone was issued with the appropriate equipment – a mask, snorkel and flippers at the least, and also a wetsuit if so desired.

Once we arrived at the reef, the well-oiled system of activities sprang into life. Snorkelling could be done at any time from the left (sorry, port) side of the boat. The glass bottomed boat did twenty-minute trips every twenty minutes from the starboard side, the certified divers were left to go about their business from the front of the boat, and the non-certified divers were taken down in groups of four from the back. Due to this exceptional organisation, I was able to snorkel, then scuba dive, and finally have a glass-bottom boat tour.

I will concentrate on the SCUBA diving here because that was most definitely the highlight. I was kitted up on a platform at the back on the boat, along with David and two others, and we were first allowed to get used to the idea of being able to breathe underwater (It’s actually more difficult to accept than you might think). Gradually we moved down the rungs of the ladder, down into the water, did some simple skills, and finally let go to follow the instructor away from the boat. I was trying to breathe, swim, and clear my ears at the same time, which I was gradually becoming better at, when an absolutely enormous fish swam across right in front of me. Absolutely enormous is a relative term here, since most reef fish are fairly small in the grand scheme of things – I’m not talking whale proportions, that’s all. That said, it was the biggest fish I had ever seen in the flesh, and it was currently swimming in slow lazy circles around me and the rest of the group, and I’m sure it had no worries at all about clearing its ears or remembering to breathe.

The fish was called Wally, a Giant Wrasse just over a metre long. The cruise company fed him, and so he kept coming back to them every day. The reef itself is much more colourful from under the surface and the visibility was excellent – the clearest water I’ve ever seen. There is no mud on the bottom – just pure coral sand that shimmers in the sunlight which makes swirling patterns all over it.

The boat moves to another reef before heading home. On the way back, there is something called ‘boom netting’, which involves throwing a big cargo net out the back of the boat, and having people hang on to it for dear life while they are dragged through the water, or in some cases, under it. This seemed like a very risky thing to do, and I opted out for this reason. Strangely enough, David headed straight for it for exactly the same reason.

It took another hour and a half to get back to Cairns, and the water became rough enough that the crew issued ‘complementary sea sickness bags’ to everyone, although in one case this came a bit too late. Before we arrived back in Cairns, we took in a magnificent sunset over the sea – a fitting end to a very enjoyable day.