Very early wake up today at 5.30am. Felt like I was in bed with the generator when it went off! Loud oul yoke!
Drifted in/out for about 30 minutes before hearing a roar through the boat "BREAKWAST IS WEADY!!!!" I wasn't hanging around in bed for long after hearing that from our German chef.
Had nice warm cuppa and toast for breakfast - during breakfast o kept looking at water and although lovely setting etc, it looked f**king freezing!! How the hell was I going to jump in there?!
Task 1 this morning, put on a stinger suit (to protect against deadly Jelly fish...WTF!! and also over that a wet suit to keep in some heat! God knows I'll bloody need it!
So off went in little boat and jumped into water with Carol and 5 others. It was not cold! Go over the initial breathing difficulties before really starting to enjoy it. Saw some amazing fish and coral. Loved it. After snorkelling it was try-to-dive time! So kitted out with all the gear, the weights and tank (mega heavy), we were boated over to the shallow are to run through some standard training e.g. Take out mouth piece under water and put back in aswell as clearing water from mask. Carol couldn't get hang of mouth piece under water so went back to boat but I got down about 5 metres before starting to get water constantly in mask. I had fierce trouble trying to clear it so paniced. Ended up going back to boat as I felt I didn't want to waste anymore of the instructors time. Would Defo like to take some diving lessons but into lessons, not standing on sharp coral doing your intro training for first time.
Swam back to boat and went snorkelling again (could at least enjoy that) before having a nice warn cuppa with lamington cake for morning snacks. Didn't even know what it was at the time but it was very tasty!
So we headed to outer great barrier reef after the dives and snorkelling through, again, some very rough seas. However, this time, I think I had found my sea legs! Stayed up front on deck which was a mad ride, every so often we'd get a gush of water over the deck whisk soaked us all!
We reached outer reef about 2 hours later and firstly we had some lunch - chicken satay and rice. The meals on this trip have been so nice and it's easy to see they were freshly prepared. Kudos to Peter and Kiana!
Water had calmed where we parked up in lagoon (we would we sleeping here tonight also) but the colours and patterns above the water were spectacular! What would it be like below?! I didn't go snorkelling as I wasn't feeling well - think I took on a bit too much saltwater during my diving fiasco this morning! Would Defo go tomorrow though!
Took some class pics of sunset at the reef before having a good laugh with everyone over beers and crackers/cheese/sausage snacks!
Later that evening we had some spaghetti bolognese for dinner with garlic bread before watching a slide show of pics pit together by diving instructor but a lot of pics were tank from previous trips or googled and they wanted 35 bucks for it. I think 3 of the 14 bought a CD.
Decided to have early night again tonight as we had 6am start (sort 5.30am due to generator!) for breakie before going for a very early snorkel!!
Can't wait to snorkel here tomorrow, we are at a place called Bait reef which is like a serious of stepping stone corals, at one side, a lagoon where or boat was parked about 7 meters above sea floor, on the other side a 70 meter drop where whales sharks and all sorts go by!! Bring it on...I think!