Snorkelling in the Great Barrier Reef with whales!!!!

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Oh my god I just don't even know where to begin. Today was definitely one of those days when you totally understand what travelling is all about - I've had the single most amazing experience of my travels! I got up ealy this morning and dropped back my car to the hire company, then I got my bits together (must also add I'd a bit of a late one last night with a whole host of nationalities) and went to catch a bus to the marina - which is about 2 minutes walk from where I'm staying. I met 2 girls at the reception who were doing the same trip, both were called Katie and both were teachers, so we had the 3 Katies off on an amazing adventure. We had to travel for about an hour to reach our first sight, and it has to be said I was really badly seasick on the way out as were a few of the other people on the boat. Luckily I'd not had breakfast so all that came up was beer (I know ye really needed to know that one!) still a very nasty experience.

We reached our first spot and got all dressed up in our wetsuits, flippers, snorkel and mask. We were on our way - except I couldn't quite grasp the no breathing through your nose thing so had a few scary moments, but it all worked out fine the longer I spent in there. Honestly words can't describe what I saw, it was unbelievable - I don't even think photos will adequately convey the enormity and sheer beauty of what we saw. Obviously I had to buy an underwater camera and so the photos will have to be posted at a later date. We came out and went to another site on the outer reef, I must add at this point that the whole time we were in the water a guy was sat up on the deck with a rifle, which of course was reassuring but also strangely worrying!

What we saw here was even more spectacular - lots of coloured coral, the most amazing fish of every colour under the sun, gigantic clams, sea cucumbers the list just goes on and on. But little did I know it was to get even better, when we had got on in the morning they mentioned the possibility of encountering minke whales and if we wanted to we could get into the water alongside them (as the boat is only one of 9 in the world allowed to go near them). We had just started lunch (most delicious prawns) when a minke whale was spotted, so they put a rope out the front of the boat and told us all to swim around and hold on to the rope and stay quiet. The current was very strong so it took a while to get there, but when I did a small group of us were there holding a rope while an 8 metre whale swam near us, then we spotted another - it was just surreal to be that close, cause I've seen quite a few whales before but this was just mind boggling.

After that we had lunch and moved on to our next stop, Now we were on the outer reef St Crispins at Agincourt where one of the guys on board the boat told us that the Lonergans disappeared, now I've done my homework and this is what happened to them "The group's boat from the Outer Edge Dive Company accidentally abandoned Tom and Eileen due to a faulty head count taken by the dive boat crew. Upon leaving the diving area, the twenty-four other divers and five crew members failed to notice that the couple were not aboard. The couple were left to fend for themselves in shark-infested waters. Although their bodies were never recovered, they likely eventually died of dehydration, drowning, shark attack, or a combination thereof" Thanks be to god I didn't know about this would've been less confident I'm sure, but I must add the crew of our boat The Aristocat counted us a lot and we had to all stand still to be counted.

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