The Great Barrier Reef keeps on living

Now he tells me! I could have been live bait, but as the old saying goes, what you don't know won't hurt you.

I made it back to the mainland and the newspaper office unscathed and for any Doubting Thomases out there, I dutifully wrote a report of my experience which featured on an Observer front page and would still be in some old file from back in the day.

And thankfully, I'm very optimistic that the Great Barrier Reef will still be surviving and thriving long after Barack Obama and any of today's climate doomsayers have

gone to a better place.