Underwater images taken with a disposable camera. All images scanned at 100dpi and saved in GIF format. If you are viewing these images on an IBM or compatible they may appear darker than the original.

For my international visitors, The Great Barrier Reef lies off the coast of Queensland, Australia. Although the adjective 'Great' probably refers to its size, the Reef is certainly a "great" place to visit. I visited the Reef on a holiday to Cairns in 1996. To get to the Reef you can take a jet cat or participate in any number of organised tours.

The majority of reputable tour operators have their own pontoons from which one can dive in protected areas. Plus if you're willing to pay a little extra most will feed you on the reef and some also offer submersible tours as well which are well worth the cost. The water is delightfully warm and full of fish, as you can see...

The "Reef Queen" moored at Fitzroy Island, Great Barrier Reef, Far North Queensland.

For those of us who are amateur photographers, the reef teaches us an important lesson about the bahaviour of light in water. The deeper you go the more red is filtered out and so the bluer it gets. This can produce some wonderful results, or disappoint you, depending on what effect you wish to achieve.

These blue fish are my favourite. We saw some at the Cairns Aquarium that were about 3 feet long. These guys were about 1 foot long and they didn't seem to mind some two legged friends swimming with them.