1 post from April 2007

Greetings and salutations!  (I watched Charlottes Web on the plane)

Well, back in the states.  No drama getting back, planes took off and landed as they were supposed to.  I'm still really amazed that those big double decker planes can fly. 

 

 

It makes me think that a cement truck could fly given enough thrust!

Since I'm sitting back in my rapidly chilling apartment (I should close the door...) with itchy calves and peeling arms I thought I'd racant some thoughts and pull down some pictures from the trip to the Great Barrier reef.

Let me level set by saying that the first thing I heard about the reef trip was that I would throw up.  Now, I don't know about you, but I don't like to throw up.  Given the opportunity, I will choose to keep that breakfast/lunch/6 pack of beer down, thankyouverymuch.  When my folks went on this trip a few weeks back. more than half of the passangers were zuking up last night's pizza.  When we got to the boat we were told that the weather was the best they'd seen in "27 years" and I'm inclined to believe them.  We had a great ride out and I only felt a little wubbly a couple of times.  Some people turned green and went to the back of the boat and I certainly hope that they had a good trip anyway.

Let me also say that the drive we made to Agnes Water on Thursday was the second time we'd trundled our asses up the coastline.  The first trip, less thatn 24 hours after landing in the country, took us to see the sea turtles hatch and tour the rum factory but we'd been weathered out for the reef trip.  We headed back home and monitored the weather and ended up going back up there when the weather turned.

It was a good hour and a half at least out fo the reef with really nothing to look at.  Well, there was water.  Lots of that.  They call it the Coral Sea and it's part of the South Pacific as far as I can tell. You know how all those oceans blend together.

So, we were tooling along, almost to the reef,  when we saw this:

 

Yep.  Dolphins off the Port and Starboard bow.. which is good because I don't know which side is which.  They swam along with us and they would leap a bit out of the waves and you could hear them breathe.  (And yes, that was how the water looked, that incredible blue.) 

After we oohed and ahhed we made it to the island itself

 

All that dark part is reef.  Dat's where the fish live.

3/4 of us got burned (Maggie was diving, so she was in a wetsuit and 60 feet under water) after 4+ hours of floating around in the water.  This is what is STILL peeling off my arms.  And not even that good, large sheet peel.. it's the little dandriff peel crap.

We made it back to the shore safetly, flag waving all the way

 

 

Exhausted, we decided to head up the hill to do one last 'Roo spot before heading in for the evening and found this pretty face wallaby hanging out with his old, bad self:

 

 

And the last thing we saw that night before heading back to the rooms?  The sunset over the Coral Sea:

 

 

Sure, the trip gave us another trip by Sexie Coffee and though Illustrious Gympie but it did add an additional 1000km to our road trip week.   I'm not complaining, but my butt kinda was by the time we were all done.  It was completely sweet and awesome of my folks to be willing to make the drive twice.