Yorkeys Knob

Dearest Rachel –

When I got my excursion tickets for this leg of the journey after getting back from wandering around Brisbane, I was missing the one I thought I’d signed up for in Cairns, and proceeded to head to Guest Services to inquire about it. There was a notice posted there about tours from a place called Yorkeys Knob, which I assumed to be a specific tour that I wasn’t a part of, so I ignored it at first. However, upon speaking to the fellow at the desk, he indicated the notice, which indicated that the tickets were still in the process of being sorted out, and that I would receive mine the following day – which I did, by the way.

Evidently, we aren’t actually landing at Cairns at all, but rather a few miles north of there, at a place with one of the oddest names I’ve visited in a long time.

Of course, since my excursion will basically last for some seven hours, between the trip out to the platform, the several hours spent there sightseeing and swimming, and the trip back, I won’t be spending a lot of time in either town, so perhaps it would be pointless to dwell on the details of either the city or whatever suburb we might be docking by. Perhaps it would make more sense to go into details about the Great Barrier Reef itself, one of the Seven Wonders of the Natural World.

Bearing in mind that both the Whitsunday Islands and the Cairns area are jumping-off spots for seeing the Great Barrier Reef, despite being an overnight sail (or, according to our guide there, an eight-hour drive) apart from each other, you might expect the Reef to be fairly long, and you would be right. The astonishing thing is just how long it is; about 1,400 miles, or slightly more than the driving distance from Chicago to Miami. The span between our two ports of call – at least, according to our captain – is somewhere between two and three hundred nautical miles (which, to be fair, are fifteen percent longer than land, or statute, miles, for some reason), which is a drop in the bucket in comparison to the Reef’s entire length. It stretches most of the way up the Pacific coast of Queensland and up to the southern coast of Papua New Guinea (although the protected area only begins at Bramble Cay, the northernmost point of Queensland).

The name comes from the fact that the coral reefs act as a protective barrier against waves (and occasionally, ships – even in Captain Cook’s day, when it was given the name) reaching the coastline – while the adjective “great” applied to it should be fairly obvious.

The list of creatures that make their home amongst the reef is truly staggering: 1,500 different species of fish, thirty species of aquatic mammals, seventeen types of sea snake, as well as a whopping five thousand varieties of mollusk. Then there are the creatures that visit it for breeding and hunting, such as the six species of sea turtle, 215 types of birds, and 125 different cartilaginous fish (such as sharks, stingrays and skates), not to mention the fact that saltwater crocodiles live in the salty mangrove marshes near the coast. Even the coral itself that composes the reef isn’t anywhere close to being monolithic; four hundred species, both hard and soft corals, inhabit and essentially comprise the reef, with variations from one end to the other – which means that no one place along its length truly captures everything that the Great Barrier Reef encompasses.

So, while I might fret about the fact that I wouldn’t be able to see much when I’m down in the water, even what I could see would be a literal drop in the ocean compared to the entirety of the whole reef. Tomorrow is barely a chance to get my – and my fellow passengers’ – feet wet, if you’ll pardon the expression, and that’s all. We’ll just get a few hours to look around, and what we see is going to be barely the smallest fraction of the whole.

Still, just being able to get out there will be a treat in and of itself, especially since those that were going today didn’t (and probably won’t, given that the excursions in Yorkeys Knob going out to the reef were all but booked solid) get a chance to see it at all. So I should thank you that I’ve been fortunate on this score thus far, as you’ve been wishing it of me – but since I ought not count my chickens until I’m safely out there and back, perhaps you might yet want to keep an eye on me, and continue to wish me that luck, as I’m still going to need it.