Cairns

Well I'm in my hostel in Cairns waiting for 9am to come around. The check out here is 7 am so any hope of sleeping in was dashed.

Yesterday I went for a day to the reef for a snorkel, which required that I get up just before 7am. I walked around to the marina to check in for my boat at 7:30. My hostel is only about a 15 minute walk from the docks in a straight line. Pretty lucky. :)

The crew on the boat was pretty great, they were good at keeping everyone entertained while they talked safety. My snorkel guide was from New Zealand and when he gave the low down, I realized I could actually hear a difference between him and the Aussie crew members. I must be getting used to it over here. When we weren't able to snorkel I spent a good chunk of my time lying around the sun deck. Otherwise I was down in the seated area taking a nap.

I was bit worried the night before that there would be rain all day and that's what was called for. But out on the water is was all blue sky's and sun. Our first snorkel was at the inner reef. I grabbed a stinger suit at the last moment because they said it was the season for jellyfish. It was really amazing swimming around with all the fish. I got pretty comfortable with all the gear fairly quickly so I could dive down for some closer looks. I also brought an underwater camera along so I was snapping away like crazy. I also really liked that the dive groups were out fairly close to us, so we could watch them submerge then disappear into the deeper waters.

After the snorkel everyone lay around drying off them head down for some food. We got to our next site just after lunch. This site was a much bigger reef, there were huge crevices and the edges dropped off into much deeper, darker waters. When I was getting my gear on my instructor brought over a sea cucumber for us to look at. They're much more rigid and solid then I thought. I figured they'd be like worms... but they are actually more like the vegetable. When we entered the water there was a school of fish that surrounded us. The crew that watches the back of the boat was throwing food for them. It was neat and pretty funny when some of the fish started jumping out of the water or splashing around. I think it hit a couple snorkelers in the face. lol.

They also had a helicopter ride over the reef and a glass bottom boat tour.. I decided to stay in the water.

The ride back was full of entertainment. A crew member named Elvis played some songs on the guitar and sung for us. I was shocked at how good the acoustics were on the boat. He was really great too. He ended with a song on the didgeridoo... it was made out of pvc pipe and was amazing on that too.

Alright I'm about to run out of internet cred. so I'll end there.