Snorkeling take two. This time we decided to go on all-day (9-hour, with buffet lunch) tour with  ☞ Seastar Cruises to Michaelmas Cay and Hastings Reefs (recommended) located 50 km NE of Cairns. Very good professional organization. Because of the distance to the outer reef, we travelled on a larger/faster boat. Seastar provided snorkeling equipment (we brought our own RX masks and snorkels) and offered introductory dives, which we decided not to take, as for first-time divers like us, it would be too much distraction on first visit to the Great Barrier Reef. The weather was good and sunny. The coral reefs were very alive and colorful, with more fish, larger and in larger schools, comparing to Mackay Reef (day 5). Each reef was visually different. At Michaelmas we landed on sand bar and snorkeled from there. Movement on the beach is very restricted as most of it is reserved for protected seabird sanctuary. At Hastings we jumped off the main boat and navigated through channels between sometimes quite shallow reef. We had close to 90 mins of snorkeling at each location – Joanna was always one of the last people getting back on board. Her persistence paid off as she was the only one to spot epaulette shark, a rare sighting on the reef. Overall very exciting and relaxing experience. Seastar crew took pictures, now  downloadable for free from their fb page (we are re-posting some here with acknowledgement).
We arrived back at Cairns marina shortly after 4 pm, walked along waterfront esplanade and checked on Cairns City Library Bats, spectacled flying foxes or fruit bats, hanging at this time of day on large trees (along Alpin St between Lake and Abbott). After short stop at our hostel (shower and laundry) we headed back for dinner at Prawn Star Restaurant (recommended) on three boats docked at the marina: large platter of deliciously fresh bugs, tigers and mixed prawns. We visited the bats again on the way to the restaurant, now at dusk buzzing around like crazy. Slow stroll back to the hostel completed our visit to Queensland.
Cairns City Library Bats – flying foxes
