An Australian who had wanted to visit the Great Barrier Reef for ‘years’ was left utterly ‘devastated and disappointed’ by the state of the coral.
Adriana Zero, an eyebrow artist from Sydney, was excited when she saw the natural beauty of the reef, but was furious when her expectations were not met.
The guide took the group to Bait Reef, where it was raining heavily and the reef had little color. Ms Zero admitted that the best part of the day was a cup of coffee and a piece of cake.
“This is the most disappointing thing,” she said in a TikTok video while floating on the ocean surface while snorkeling.
“There’s no color, there’s no fish (and) it all looks dead. It is certainly not what you would expect from the Great Barrier Reef… and this should be the most beautiful spot on the Great Barrier Reef.”
Adriana Zero from Sydney was excited to see the Great Barrier Reef for the first time, but was disappointed by the condition of the coral (right)
In the now viral video, Ms Zero turned the camera around to show what the reef looked like underwater.
“There’s a lot of white stuff floating around, making it hard to see anything,” she said.
The only time Ms Zero was able to see multiple fish was at the end of the tour, when she threw bread into the water from the boat – but tour operators strongly advised against doing this.
“It was heavy rain and terrible weather, and they still took us,” she said.
Before the trip, Ms Zero claimed she understood the impact of global warming and tourists on the reef, but she had no idea of the amount of damage that had been done.
‘I had heard and hoped that we would revive it. This proved to me that we still have a long way to go. The guides agreed that what you see on documentaries is not reality and is very rare to see,” she said.
Ms. Zero’s video has since been viewed more than a million times and received more than 47,000 likes.
‘I’m sorry you had a disappointing experience. The barrier reef is amazing, looks like you just had a bad day or place. Maybe next time,” one person wrote.
‘The Great Barrier Reef is huge, it’s not all a beautiful reef to look at. There are places with a greater density of marine life than others,” said another.
A third added: ‘I recently went to the Great Barrier Reef and this was the complete opposite of my experience.’
Others encouraged Ms Zero to go back and explore different parts of the reef, with some suggesting she visit Western Australia.
‘You have to go to the Ningaloo Reef! It’s so much more pristine and untouched,” one person wrote.
“Ningaloo and the Coral Coast line will never disappoint,” another confirmed.
“Go to Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia,” said another.
According to WWF AustraliaOver the past thirty years, the reef has lost half its coral cover due to global warming, coral bleaching and pollution.
The reef itself is 2,300 kilometers long, stretching from the northern end of Queensland to northern Bundaberg.
It consists of 900 islands and has 3,000 coral reefs that are home to thousands of species of marine life.