See all Posts in the Wanderlust – A Travel Blog Series
I remember my children when they were small, frittering away a fine Saturday morning watching an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants in which the antagonist was a giant clam. If you weren’t careful, this dangerous predator would chase and eat you whole with its hungry and enormous, rugged mouth.
Giant clams do exist, but they are hardly the fearsome creatures featured in Saturday morning cartoons. In the Great Barrier Reef, these gentle giants are just one creature of many in a fascinating array of marine life you can see while snorkeling or diving in the crystal-clear waters of the Coral Sea.
The Great Barrier Reef spans roughly 1,500 miles along the northeast coast of Australia. It is not a single contiguous structure, but rather a collection of thousands of individual reefs and islands that host thousands of fish, plants, turtles, sharks and coral species.
This UNESCO World Heritage site is considered one of the seven natural wonders of the world. The reef is made up of hard mineral skeletons in a myriad of shapes and sizes, left by tiny animals called coral polyps that live on the surface.
While the Great Barrier Reef is far away, it is not difficult to visit. Cairns, a regional center of Queensland, has excellent international air service and is the jumping-off point for many diving and snorkeling expeditions. Dive boats and snorkeling guides hawk their services from nearly every hotel and storefront in Cairns.
Whether you dive or snorkel, I recommend finding a tour that includes a marine biologist who can point out interesting sights that you would never have found on your own. Your appreciation of the reef will be an order of magnitude higher with an expert guide narrating the drama of the competition for survival that you might otherwise have missed.
Getting back to the giant clams. They really are large, up to four feet across. They are filter feeders, so they are only dangerous to you if you are algae. They sit in one spot their whole lives, and while they can open and close their shells, they do this slowly and in a non-threatening way. The lining around their shell opening looks like brightly colored velvet. They are beautiful, impressive and peaceful creatures.
Other cool creatures include the brightly colored (orange and white) clown fish. They spend their lives in a symbiotic relationship with sea anemones. The clown fish is immune to the anemone’s venomous tentacles. In exchange for spending time in this safe haven, the clown fish attracts food and provides nutrients for the sea anemone.
Another fascinating site (that we would have completely missed without our marine biologist) was the coral “day spa” cleaning station. This was a chunk of coral that looked like any other, but it was buzzing with small fish on a mission. Larger fish would pull into an open bay, and cleaning fish would line up to pick away parasites, dead skin or algae growth. Free food for the little guys, and a day at the spa for the big guys.
Various parts of the reef will have niche characteristics that favor different marine plants and animals. In one area, it might be brightly colored parrotfish banging their beaks against the coral.
In another, it might be sharks, turtles, gigantic wrasse, groupers, manta rays or even whales. There is so much to see that no two dives or snorkeling trips will be the same.
Like other reef systems around the world, the Great Barrier Reef is showing signs of damage from global warming.
According to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, the reef has experienced five mass coral bleaching events in the last eight years. When the coral dies off in a mass bleaching event, all that remains are the pale white skeletons of the reef. The bright colors are gone, and the fish go elsewhere in their search for food and shelter until the reef has time to regenerate.
The Australian government and a number of reef protection groups are taking action to fight climate change and restore reef habitats. This is important work to protect this amazing place for future generations.
If I were SpongeBob SquarePants, I would worry a lot less about the clams and a lot more about the reef.
