Snorkelling Norman Fingers, Norman Reef

This post is about snorkelling Norman Fingers on Norman Reef, located on the Coral Coast on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

If you haven’t already, make sure you read about snorkelling the outer Great Barrier Reef. It gives details about the Great Barrier Reef, and Norman Reef, getting there and the tour operator we chose. 

On the Norman Reef, our tour operator took us to three spots: Norman Fingers, Playgrounds/Shark Mountain and Wildside Central.

Snorkelling Norman Fingers

Norman Fingers is more protected from the elements so it was a privilege to visit this part of  Norman Reef. The tour operator provides a map of where you can snorkel. There were so many places to choose from, we were like kids in a lolly shop. 

Conditions

Visibility was mostly good (poor in some spots). It meant we could get some good photos and sit back and enjoy the life around us.

The reef

Magic. Lots of outcrops of corals. Bommies galore. Fish galore. Gorgeous vibrant clams. Just wow!

The boat moors in amongst the reef, in a depth of about 15 metres. To the left (sorry not sure if it’s north, south etc) is a wonderful outcrop of reef and a gorgeous giant claim amongst it. To the right are what looks like fingers of corals and wall that runs from there. The wall was strictly for divers. That was fine by us. There was so much to see anyway. Directly behind the boat (where you step off into the water) there is plenty of reef to swim over where it then becomes one to two metres deep.

Norman Fingers certainly made up for Central Wildside, which has been smashed by cyclones and climate change.

A wonderful array of what we saw at Fingers on Norman Reef

Sitting close to 80 metres from the boat, close to the two metre depth, we spotted a beautiful turtle. We filmed it for a while, it wasn’t bothered by us at all, and eventually we had to stop following as we’d get whistled at by the tour operator for going too far (fair enough).

It was a wonderful experience. Here’s the footage we captured.

Snorkelling with the turtle on Norman Reef

Our recommendation

Our recommendation is based on a comparison with other sites we’ve visited, the snorkelling guide, the abundance of corals and fish life. It also includes environmental factors such as damage to corals by tourists and/or climate change. 

We’d give this snorkel 4 out of 5. In fact, it’s probably a 4.5!

It would have been a 5 but we thought that snorkelling Norman Playgrounds was even better!

Other places we visited on Norman Reef are:

• Playgrounds/Shark Mountain, and
• Wildside Central.