Stretching from south-east Queensland to the tip of Cape York, the Great Barrier Reef is by far the largest reef system in the world. It’s made up of 3,000 individual reefs, crosses the sea country of more than 70 traditional owner groups and, according to the Reef Authority, covers the same area as 70 million football fields. In recent years, these figures have been joined by a host of less welcome statistics, including the hottest ocean temperatures in 400 years and increasingly frequent mass coral bleaching.
Seeing the reef in person brings all of these numbers to life. While rising sea temperatures are an existential threat to many corals, the sheer size of the reef means there are considerable variations in the scale of the bleaching, as well as underwater topography, water temperature and marine life. And yet, most tourists base themselves in a single port and see only a tiny fraction of this diversity.
