IS it possible to experience the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef without getting your hair wet?
The answer is a resounding YES.
Green Island, a beautiful 6000-year-old coral cay in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, just 27 kilometres offshore from Cairns, is a popular destination for visitors to Far North Queensland.
The ferry trip to the island takes only 45 minutes, making it easy for a day or half-day experience, and once there you can take a glass-bottom boat tour and ride in a semi-submarine.
Unlike the glass-bottom boats, the semi-submarine lets you eyeball fish as they swim alongside, seemingly as curious about you as you are about them.
A large population of sea turtles, including the endangered green and hawksbill turtles, are often found swimming in the seagrass and reefs close to shore but on this day we were not lucky enough to see them.
If the boat rides provoke a desire to get among it, the sandy protected beaches are a perfect place to try snorkelling for the first time because the coral reef is only metres from the shore and there is a patrolled swimming area on one side of the island.
All the Green Island ferries include snorkelling equipment and flotation devices so you can take what you need from the boat when you disembark.
But if you are content to stay on dry land there is a self-guided 1.3-kilometre walk along a boardwalk where you can enjoy the wide diversity of bird and insect life living inside the tropical vine forest covering the island.
The bushwalk has been voted one of Queensland's best.
Finally, if you can't bear to leave, Green Island Resort is a luxury haven, with just 46 suites nestled within the rainforest, perfectly secluded from the day visitor facilities.
Going under
To see the Great Barrier Reef in its true magnificence you need to venture out to sea, slip on a snorkel and flippers and plunge beneath the surface.
Ocean Safari offers an exhilarating fast, but very bumpy, 25-minute ride to two pristine areas off the Daintree Coast where you can see an extraordinary array of marine life and coral species.
At Undine Reef it was like swimming in an aquarium and, for a precious few moments, I swam above a turtle moving languidly through the water before it moved off at a pace too quick for me to follow.
After a leisurely hour or so at the reef there, it was time to get back on our small rigid inflatable boat, driven by a 700-horsepower engine, and ride hard and fast to our second destination, Mackay Cay, a tiny jewel of a sand cay created by sediment drifting on ocean currents.
Two tousle-haired lads, freed at last from the iron grip of their mother, ran swooping and whooping along the sand, sending water birds scattering
You can snorkel from the shoreline or you can do whatever you feel like doing on this pristine desert cay.
For my travelling companions and I it was the perfect opportunity to spread our towels in the sun and open our cans of gin and tonic.
IF YOU GO...
Access to the Green Island semi-submarine is down steep, narrow steps.
Space inside is tight so it is not suitable for anyone suffering from claustrophobia.
The Ocean Safari is not recommended for anyone with back problems as the boat bounces hard in the water.
Sue Preston was a guest of Tourism Tropical North Queensland.