Got a catamaran out to Mackay Reef which took about an hour 45mins - we weren't going particularly quickly but I was so sea sick, not good!  Thankfully by the time we dropped anchor i was fine.

Jen and I did an introductory scuba dive, just us 2 went down with the instructor for half an hour and it was amazing.  Found it difficult to equalise my ears at first so felt like my head was going to explode!! But managed to get them to pop by the time we got about 12m down.  We saw so much - the coral was gorgeous and although not as colourful as i imagined, it was so extensive and intricate that it blew me away.  We also saw loads of fish, including a Dorey!!  And best of all was a sea turtle - he was just floating along below us and was so cool, the characterisation of them in Nemo is spot on - show me some fin dude! hehe

After the dive and some lunch we had a talk about the reef and the fish which was really interesting, then Kane, one of the crew, took about 10 of us on a snorkelling tour a few hundred metres from the boat.  This was even more amazing - it was shallower than where we had dived so the colours of the coral could be seen more clearly and there was much more variety.  He dove down and brought a sea cucumber up - very slimey! - and pointed out lots of creatures including the starfish (pic above) another turtle (still gliding along being cool!) and a clown fish in an anenenenenome hehe.

The journey back was much better, no sea sickness here! - and we had cake and wine and sunbathed.  Kane also played the digeridoo which was rally cool - Rolf Harris eat your heart out - I had a go but was pretty rubbish, i mead a few authentic sounding noises but nothing that good!

That night after tea we went for a walk on the beach and watched the stars - they are so clear and there seems to be hundreds of them - and we saw a crocodile in the river snapping up and swimming around - eek!  Was cool to see it in its natural habitat though.