Oh what a night. My wife demonstrated that you can sleep in a thousand positions in our tiny Spaceship van. One minute her head was level with mine, the next I was starring at her feet. If she wasn't taking the blanket off she was draping it over herself again. If she wasn't hot she was complaining it was too cold... so much for going to bed at 9.30 pm ready for our early start tomorrow. Unfortunately I couldn't banish her to the spare room or the sofa. By 11.30 pm I thought it best to ask what the problem was, after suggesting she should go for a walk. She replied, "I hate sleeping in the heat". Remember your wedding vows Scott... remember your wedding vows.

Despite another crap nights sleep we got up in time and headed for the airport. We knew we would be riding in a small aircraft and as the flight was only 30 minutes long we didn't mind. The flight to Lady Elliot Island was exciting and relatively smooth in comparison to our light aircraft ride in South America. As we ascended into the air we could see Hervey Bay disappearing beneath us and a large expanse of ocean opening up before us. To our right we could see the World famous Fraser Island which we intended to visit on Monday. It didn't take long before we reached Lady Elliot Island. The plane circled a few times before making a steep descent towards the grass runway. As we approached, a flock of birds scattered either side of the runway as the plane hit the ground with a thud. We were buffeted around as the plane bobbed and skipped over the rough grassy ground. It finally stopped short of the sea on the other side of the island before it turned to drop us at reception. That was great fun!

We had a short debriefing session at reception before roaming the island and in particular the beach-side. The island was inundated with birds, thousands of them. I felt like an extra in Hitchocks 'The Birds'. Ju and myself were really looking forward to snorkelling later on the open bottom boat. The weather was a little cloudy but very warm. The sun was strong enough to cast a shadow from the palm tree which were dotted around the island.

We boarded the open bottomed boat, eager at the prospect of snorkelling. We saw a large Manta Ray through the glass in the boats hull as well as a collection of tropical fish. We weren't interested in seeing all this wildlife through glass, we wanted in the water! Our opportunity came and hand in hand we splashed through waves and tourists along the snorkel trail before us. It was great fun diving down and seeing the all to familiar Parrot Fish. I loved the fact you can hear fish chewing on the correll. It reminded me of a similar experience of snorkelling in Egypt. It sounds like joints cracking under water. I pointed this observation out to Ju who replied "oh yeah, I can hear that, I thought it was my hearing". Armed with the knowledge my wife is mad we held hands and continued snorkelling together occasionally diving down before we had to return to the boat.

Lunch at the Island was fab. A buffet, all you can eat. We tried to discipline ourselves but we later regretted our over eating as we attempted a spot more snorkelling in the afternoon. However this time instead of looking like tourists we looked more like floundering Whales about to beach ourselves on shore. The water in the afternoon was much more cloudy than in the morning. It was still good fun, but we didn't see as much. The highlight of the afternoon was feeding time for the fishes. Stood at the shores edge we watched as hundreds of brightly coloured fish darted between our feet gobbling up the food. Apparently this ritual had been performed since 1985.

For the return flight we took pole position in the aircraft behind the pilot. Ju was cheeky enough to ask if she could ride shot gun as co-pilot. How could the pilot refuse. I took the opportunity to point out to the pilot that Ju shouldn't be allowed to touch any of the controls and that her hand should be placed in her lap so she couldn't break anything. The pilot smiled. You can smile I thought - you don't know Ju like I. It was great seeing Ju's head flitting from side to side as she watched controls light up and dials spin around. We were now taxing up the runway and ready to turn for take off. The ascent was bumper than the landing with the same flock of birds to see us off. We quickly reached 5000 feet and before long Ju was videoing our landing back at Hervey Bay. It was really cool peering over the captains shoulder as the plane came in to land at an angle. There was a tinny screech as the tyres touched the ground - this had really been a cool experience. Chips by the seaside, blog writing and bed was the evenings entertainment. We had both had an exciting day - finally we had seen and snorkelling a bit of the Great barrier reef.