Swimming with the fishies

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August 22, 2007
What a wonderful day. We were a little upset because all of the snorkel tours we wanted to do were all booked so we settled on another one, which turned out to be better. There were not many people on the boat compared to all the other boats in the Marina that looked like hardly any room to move around. We were on a sail boat and the only problem was really not that bad. We were on board with a group of Koreans and therefore everything was pretty much done in Korean before it was done in English. It would have been nice to be able to speak with some other people on board but beside us and a couple other families sitting next to us on the bow, we were it for English speakers. Oh well, we enjoyed the hot sunshine and cat naps on the front of the sailboat.
Our first stop was a small sandbar. We snorkeled off the back of the boat and Mark and I decided to swim to the sandbar. There was a glass bottomed boat that was taking people around, but it was just so nice to sit on the sandbar and snorkel when we felt like it. Mark has a pretty bad cold so we headed back to the boat before most people which worked out well, since lunch was ready. The boat had a really nice buffet lunch and I had to stop myself from going back for seconds, I would have if I had not been wearing a bikini. Mark and I took advantage of not being able to talk to anybody and had another nap on our way to our next destination. The reefs we saw at the next snorkeling spot was much better and more of what we thought we would see of the Great Barrier Reef. It was great to be able to see the reef, but we both thought that the reef doesn’t look that much different to any other reefs we have seen before. But it was still amazing at how large the reef is and it looks like it goes on forever. There were also some really cool fish that I had never seen before. Luckily no sharks were around that day!
Mark and I had a fun day and Mark only got sunburn where the lotion missed. I was really good and kept putting 30 on after my cook Island experience. That hurt for days. We have a bunch of pictures that are on a underwater camera so we will have to add them once we get the camera developed.
After seeing all the wonderful fish we decide d on seafood for dinner. We had a nice meal and then headed back to our room. This is where our fun day turned bad. We got a call from Aly who told us they were stuck in Sydney because the flight they were on, no longer exists. We are booked on the same flight for tomorrow. We were to fly to Sydney and then off to Singapore on Gulf Air. Apparently, Gulf Air no longer flies out of Australia. Air treks, our travel agent for the flights, never told us and neither did Gulf Air. Gulf Air was about as helpful as a chocolate teapot (I stole that line from Mark). I was getting nowhere with Gulf Air and Air treks didn’t open until 6am Pacific time. We got in touch with them around 11pm our time. I should say Mark got in touch with them, because after getting so angry with Gulf Air who didn’t want to accept responsibility and Kept telling me everybody knew they no longer flew from AUS. Um, yeah apparently not everybody buddy. So Mark had to deal with Air treks before I threw the phone all the way to California. Air Treks put us on a Quantas flight from Sydney to Singapore via Perth, AUS. Air treks spoke with Gulf Air who assured them they would endorse tickets since we had already paid the airfare (by law, they had to get other flights for people who had paid). We were told to call Gulf Air the next morning at 9:00am when they opened. So until then…..

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Photos

At our first stop
Before the fish feeding and snorkel time.

Nemo
We did not take this picture. It was on the CD that we bought with the previous picture.