The Great Barrier Reef has long been one of Australia’s greatest attractions, but in recent years, tourists have expressed their disappointment after visiting. A lack of marine life and lacklustre colours replace the once vibrant coral reef according to travellers, with some reporting an overall sense of feeling “underwhelmed”.
One woman named Adina visited the North Queensland hotspot last month during her travels around Australia. Excited for a snorkelling adventure, she said she found it “incredibly mid”, or mediocre.
Detailing her visit on social media, Adina said she and her friends “stopped at two different snorkel spots” throughout the famous reef, and “neither had many fish at all”, despite videos she’d seen showing a vibrant and thriving ecosystem.
The reef is thought to have 1,500 species of fish, about 400 species of coral, 4,000 species of mollusc, and some 240 species of birds, plus a great diversity of sponges, anemones, marine worms, crustaceans, and other species.
But she’s not the only one who felt let down by the Great Barrier Reef, and responding to her video, scores of travellers shared their own dissatisfaction.
‘Degradation’ of reef has led to ‘a lot of change’ in recent years
One admitted they had “high expectations” before visiting, and earlier this year Yahoo News detailed another woman’s “underwhelming” experience.
“There’s no colour, there’s no fish, it all looks dead. It is certainly not what you’d expect from the Great Barrier Reef,” she said. “To say I was [devastated] and underwhelmed is an understatement.”
According to some, the Great Barrier Reef “is beyond saving”. “It’s been destroyed,” another shared.
Veteran dive operator Tony Fontes told Yahoo News that in his 45 years in the Whitsundays region, he too has noticed a change in the reef’s condition.
“Certainly over the time I’ve been diving the reef, I’ve seen a lot of change. Most of that change has been fairly negative” he said. “There’s been a degradation of the reef. There’s no doubt about it”.
Adina said she visited two different snorkelling spots but was disappointed both times. Source: Source: TikTok/Adinasuzuki
Global warming and climate change have long been blamed for the destruction of the reef — particularly the southern end. It’s believed warmer waters are repeatedly bleaching the coral found within it.
Wild weather events, including storms, have also wreaked havoc on the once-thriving reef, Fontes explained.
Majority of huge reef area ‘still in relatively good condition’
While parts of the huge 348,000 square kilometre area have certainly seen better days, some argue “it depends what part of the reef you go to” suggesting there are still areas that depict the breathtaking beauty it’s known for.
“I went on a tour from Airlie Beach and it was kinda dull like this, but I went from Cairns and it was beautiful,” said one online. “It’s better if you go to less crowded/popular parts,” another shared.
And Fontes agrees. “The reef is big. It’s comprised of over 3000 individual reefs,” he explained.
“It’s certainly fair to say there are still beautiful sites out there that have not been impacted in any way. In fact, the majority of the reef, you could say, is still in relatively good condition. It really does boil down to where people visit the reef”.
The southern end of the reef (left) has lost more coral than the northern end (right) Source: AIMS
Advice for tourists visiting the famous reef
For people visiting, Fontes recommends doing your research. “Tourism operators are not silly” and reputable companies will always conduct tours around sites that have not been impacted, he said.
“Most of the major tourism nodes like Cairns, Townsville to a smaller degree, Port Douglas, the Whitsundays, down around the Keppel Islands, are large enough that even if they were hit by, say, a major bleaching event, they would still have sites they could go visit,” he said.
While there are certainly “a few bad apples” those companies tend not to last very long he said. “There are people who are exploiting the reef simply to make a dollar, and that’s really quite sad”
“You can obviously avoid that if you can afford the green operators because they tend to be a bit dearer, and the bad apples are fairly cheap for obvious reasons.”
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