Wow! What an iconic day this has been. Up early for breakfast, as we had to be back in reception at 8.15am. Breakfast was again this wonderful grilled asparagus dish with salmon caviar, ruby grapefruit and hollandaise sauce that I discovered yesterday, but this time with a side of smoked salmon - perfect!! So, we found at 8.15 that we were the only qualia guests going on this Reefworld trip today, so they took us down to the marina and told us that they would move our buggy down to qualia's helipad for our return. There were quite a lot of people on our craft out to the reef, and the journey took about 2 1/2 hours, with over 1 hour of it in open sea, the rest was in channels between islands, or in the calmer waters of the reef. Our trip was delayed for quite a while because we inadvertently motored in between two pods of whales. One of them swam right alongside our boat. When we arrived at the pontoon Tom and I headed straight for the semi-submersible craft that reminded me very much of the submarine ride in Hawaii. We cruised alongside a wall of reef - rather interesting because of the many varieties of reef, but disappointing due to the lack of colour. The fish were small, and not terribly photogenic with the little iPhone. It was interesting but certainly not spectacular. As we exited the craft we were informed that lunch was served on our boat, which stayed moored to the pontoon for the day, so we returned to the boat for lunch, which was a lovely array of salads, nicely fried chicken (dry, not greasy), and ham. After lunch we found the large viewing spot on the deck where you could see huge fish below, and then we found the viewing room which was similar to an oceanarium and you could just sit and watch all of the different schools of fish swimming around. One of the attendants threw some fish food overboard to make it more interesting! We left the viewing room at 1.30pm, our appointed time for helicopter departures. We were put on a barge type of craft and motored over to the helipad pontoons where 3 helicopters were waiting. We boarded a large helicopter with 3 other adults and a toddler and had a lovely 30 minute trip back. We spotted some whales, flew over heart reef, Whitehaven Beach (which had an adjoining harbour full of leisure craft) and then landed back on Hamilton Island. Our pilot was told we were returning to HI, and he didn't know we were from qualia. So then we waited while they rang qualia to come and get us. Our lovely driver turned up, and he took us to the qualia helipad where our adventure chariot was waiting for us. These little golf buggies are great fun, and people put children's car-seats and capsules in them! We then returned to our pavilion where we opened our bottle of Moët and our nibbles for afternoon tea. We were quite relaxed when reception rang to ask if I was coming to the oyster and champagne tasting. The last we'd heard I was the only booking and there was a minimum requirement of 4. We were just preparing for an afternoon nap after our busy day. After our nap we got ourselves organised for our dinner. We had a booking at a lovely seafood restaurant in town, Mariners. We were shown to a wonderful table with a gorgeous view overlooking the marina. Our waitress and other staff were very friendly. The food was delicious, and washed down with glasses of Charles Heidsieck. We both had smoked trout as an entree, and then I had Moreton Bay bugs with clams, mussels and tiger prawns. Tom had beef tenderloins. We then shared a caramel creme brûlée with whiskey bananas and sticky dates, and the birthday brownie they brought to our table and the maitre de sang Happy Birthday to me in his lovely Irish accent. Oh, and we had Cherry Ripe cocktails - Tia Maria, Malibu and Chambord!! Yum!! When we returned to our pavilion we found a lovely birthday card and a box of handmade chocolates. 'Twas a wonderful day! Qualia has wonderful large timber gates to enter or leave the property, opening with the scan of our room card. Tom says they remind him of Jurassic Park.