Tommy & Rhonda's Travels

Great Barrier Reef

AUSTRALIA | Thursday, 8 November 2007 | Views [228]

Well, it was a long night. Neither of us slept good and our room, #21 was on top of the boat. This was the worst part of the boat as far as seasickness goes and since we were moving the entire night (we weren’t’ supposed to be) it made it very rough. We were up at 4am just rocking back and fourth….not good. Rhonda got very seasick and was feeling awful in the morning. This caused her to miss the first 2 dives in the morning…ugh. I went ahead and did them, they were really good. The first one my buddy was Christine from Canada and the second was Scott from Germany. Scott likes to go deep and before I knew it I was 22 meters deep. I’m only supposed to go 18 so that was a bit of a problem. I got up to a good depth immediately but we were in the water 30 minutes so I was a little over what I should have been on the dive table. I’m sure I’d be fine but that was the last dive for me that day. Besides, I was seeing some really cool fish and stuff on the dives but the snorkelers were seeing turtles and sharks so I wanted some of that. Rhonda finally felt good enough to get in the water so we snorkeled on the last dive. What a great choice! We saw tons of blue starfish, different fish and towards the end of the dive a big ol sea turtle just floating along and then 2 sharks! Awesome! The sharks were white tip reef sharks and probably 4 to 6 feet…not huge or scary but it was really cool to see them in their own environment. We got back on the boat and had 2 hours to do nothing until it was time to transfer back to Reef Quest for the ride back to Cairns. Rhonda was napping on a couch most of that time and I called home which was cool just to be sitting out on the Great Barrier Reef in the middle of the ocean talking to my parents. We finally go to transfer back and had a nice conversation with a couple Aussies and Keith from Chicago. When we got back, we walked home and checked back into the hotel Cairns. Room 227 was much, much better than 201…nicer, cleaner, no toilet problems. We laid down (its about 5pm) watched a little TV and napped a little. I went down to get our bags from the storage room about 6 and Rhonda was out. I laid back down to get ready for our big night out in Cairns….a nice dinner and some drinks and checking out the nightlife. Next thing I knew it was midnight, I was taking out my contacts and waking Rhonda and telling her to do the same. No dinner, no going out. We easily slept till after 6am…I guess we really needed it!

Tags: Adventures