Wow! That's all today's blog needs!
Woke up at 5.30am in outer great barrier reef on our vessel, Kiana. Had breakie while watching sunrise..was so amazing to get sunset last night against sea and sunrise the following morning against same backdrop. Thats how far we were out!!
Woke up about 3am this morning because of the French man over us snoring and after every gave a little shriek as if he was getting a fright each time. Some weird dude.
My first job this morning was an awful one...go snorkelling in great barrier reef!! Carol and I were dropped about 500 meters from boat and told we could snorkel back with current. Carol was and had been my snorkel buddy all the time. They say every diver or snorkeler should buddy up in case of emergency etc. I lost Carol after we jumped from boat thinking someone else was her who managed to swim along next to me. (believe me with all the gear on you could swimming next to anyone!).
Eventually met up with her again and we snorkelled together down over amazing reefs and corals, each of us pointing out something the other didn't see. We bought an under water disposable camera so we hope all the pics come out!! We saw so many different fish, large and small..even a turtle!! Was class! Didn't see Sharks or whales in my snorkel but one of the lads yesterday was confronted with what he thought was a dolphin...it wasn't!!! It was a Meter or 2 long shark! Crazy stuff!
Yesterday we had whales all over the horizon but much too far to get pic. Hopefully today we'd get a bit closer for nice pics.
We snorkelled for about an hour and after we got out, we got back in! We were both loving this and enjoying every moment of this! I think this was the coolest thing we've done this trip. (bar meet Sinéad / David :-)).
After our snorkel, it was time to start our long trip home , we set off about 8.45am (seems like we've done so much since we have been up!), it would take about 6.5 hours to get back to bay!
En route back, 2 whales appeared about 300 meters away from boat. This was class! We stopped boat and took some pics whilst they played and splashed in water. Cool stuff!
Then out of nowhere a massive whale left a roar from the side of the boat! One had come right alongside the boat!! This was f**king mental!! The biggest living thing I has ever seen! The other one came over to boat and the 2 humpback whales played around and under boat for about 15 mins before heading away! Defo a day to remember!!
Not to end there though, about 40 mins after and just as everyone was snoozing off, a dolphin appeared and swam with boat for about 5 mins! Hard to get decent pics as they swim right under boat, nearly fell out at one stage trying to take a pic!
Had a cruising lunch around Whitsunday's (due to our long whale stop) which was nice and relaxing and still the views were class. We sailed pass the Hayman islands, a 5 star resort and one of the most VIPish places in the world. Still prefer my little camper ;-)
After lunch, the engines were switched off and we did some real 'sailing' sailing!! The masts were raised (the skipper involved the guests in raising the masts which was cool) and we set sail for our final journey home.
Arrived back in Airlie for about 3.30pm and after thanking the crew for a great experience, we collected luggage and headed off for Mackay. Step 1 of our mammoth journey down south!!
Booked into the park caravan park in Mackay, didnt really like it, the receptionist was a snotty cow who really looked after her own regular visitors and made us feel as if she didn't really want us there, she even looked at our van and said 'don't be closing the side door too much tonight as it makes noise' - i felt like telling her f**k off there and then and sleeping on side of road. The wagon.
Not looking forward to tomorrow, we got about 9/10 hour drive ahead to Hervey Bay where we hope to do a whale watching tour and visit Fraser island. Really looking forward to Fraser but we think whales won't come any better than than our experience on way back from reef!!