Lady Elliot Island - 4th-6th June 2008.Wow, Wow, Wow!!!What a fantastic place, this was a little add on to our trip but we are so glad that we did.Lady Elliot Island is reached by a 'Scenic' flight from Hervey Bay and a couple of other local airports, scenic means another tiny plane!The flight over was excellent, the pilot thought it would be nice to fly over the Fraser island coast (as today the sun was shining and the skies blue).The flight took around 30-40 mins, Rob saw a Dugong and a couple of dolphins swimming in the bay, we were also on whale lookout as the migration of the humpback whales is coming into season.The Island came into view and was amazing to see, LEI is a coral cay so looked like a pale circle in the sea.The landing strip was the centre of the island and made up of coral rock with some rough grass growing over it!The landing wasn't quite as bumpy as you may expect, but I was relieved to have made it!We were taken to our room which was called an eco lodge (tent to most people!).After inquiring about an upgrade to a cabin we decided the money would be better spent in the dive shop!The tent had two sets of bunk beds and a bedside cabinet between the two, we did have a small strip light, but we were glad we had put one of the torches in our bag.One of the other guests described the island as 'raw', this is a very good explanation.The place consisted of 10 eco huts and around 30 cabins holding a total of 96 guests at any one time.There was a small restaurant which served up very good food, we always had plenty of choice, a small bar had several different wines, beers and a comprehensive cocktail list.There was a TV room but generally we were ready for bed around 8.30pm!The stars were amazing, the milky way was so bright we spent a fair bit of time star gazing.The island activities were all centred around the reef, snorkelling was determined by the tides, as the island was surrounded by so much live coral that many areas were only accessible at high tide, but what was there was something else.There were several dive sites on the edge of the reef, including a wreck. We booked to dive the first afternoon and was taken to an area called second reef.We had to wait at the sea bed as one of the other divers was having problems, whilst we were waiting we sat watching a huge moray eel that was hiding under a rock.He kept poking his head out at us, Rob was of course busy with the camera.We then found lots of huge green turtles that live in the area, they are so graceful and unfazed by divers.The dive master went to one of the turtles and scratched his shell, Rob was first in (with his camera!), so also got to have a scratch before the turtle swam off.The current was fairly strong so this was a drift dive (you go in the water at one point and the boat moves to pick you up at a different site).I felt a little queasy after the dive due to the motion of the water.The coral formation is quite different from our previous dives further north as it is all hard coral and therefore not as colourful as soft corals.There were lots and lots of little fish, huge shoals of them.We had rainbow wrasse, rabbit fish, sergeant majors, parrot fish, longfin bannerfish and lots of others we have seen before.Rob decided to go on the early morning dive the next day, he was on his own with one dive master who was also an underwater photographer, they had the pleasure of diving with manta rays, and also a large stingray.The mantas are huge some of them up to 4 metres across, but so graceful in the water.We went on the snorkel trip and glass bottomed boat, the mantas were still about but moved out slightly as the boat approached.The marine biologist on board gave a talk on the area about the coral formation and also the marine life.We saw a large turtle eating a jelly fish, it kept biting a chunk off then flipping it up into the water, it was obviously playing as well as feeding.The mantas had moved to another area for the second dive of the day, which started at the wreck of the Severance.He saw another giant moray eel hiding in the wreck that was bigger than the one we had seen the previous day and also a Queensland grouper that was massive, along with the usual green turtles and two large camouflage groupers.Unfortunately the camera battery died so he didn't get many shots of the dive.Later in the afternoon we went on the guided reef walk, at low tide one of the marine biologists takes you out in the lagoon area and points out some of the wildlife and their hiding places, it was very interesting.We were unable to dive on the Friday as we were flying home that afternoon, however we did get to snorkel the west side of the island.We could see the manta rays flapping about in the water, only when we got in the current was quite strong so we couldn't get to them.We came out after around 45 mins thinking that we were out of luck, only to see them playing in the area we had just come from.Rob went back in and was lucky enough to have them come all around him again.We then went off for a snorkel in the lagoon area, it was fairly shallow so we didn't stay in for too long.All in all this is an absolutely wonderful place, so natural, everyone who works there cares about the environment and it is used as a study centre.Several humpback whales were spotted breaching as they passed the island, I wasn't fortunate enough to see one though!Our flight back to Hervey Bay was by slightly bigger plane a 14 seater!As we circled the island you could see all the manta rays just off the reef, it was a magical sight. This was a wonderful trip, we are both so glad we went and consider ourselves to be very lucky we had this experience.