sky, sea, sky, sea, sky.sea.....

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The sun was hot, the sky was blue. Our vessel "Ocean Quest" left the pier at 9am to take us to the Great Barrier Reef for a day of snorkeling. The journey started out fine, but after the 90 minute open water voyage, the Reef was "swell"!! We were suited up with our snorkeling gear and splashed into the water! The ocean was super warm and our wetsuits even warmer! The water was very choppy and the swells were very large. The poor boy didn't fair too well. After about 40 minutes in the water, we headed back to the boat to rest. Once onboard, the rocking got a tad worse... I looked at Murray and said... "well you only have 5 more hours to endure before your feet touch the land again!" We got Murray settled and pumped him some more with motion sickness pills. I had lunch and then the boat took us to the second dive location. Murray stayed onboard, while I jumped back into the water for my second snorkel. This time the water was even more choppy then the first dive location. During the snorkel, we saw a bunch of colourful fish and very colourful coral. I was floating around and noticed that there were some "water bubbles" on my left side. I looked again because there were no scuba divers under me, I look right and it was clear, I looked left again and saw the "water bubbles" and realized that they were "jelly fish....stingers". So I got out of their way to avoid colliding with them. It was pretty scary!!! So I decided my time snorkeling on the reef was about done and headed back to the boat. Once onboard, Murray had started to feel a little better and decided to eat a little. When it was time to head back to the pier, the waves were splashing over the bow as the swells were huge!! We got back to land after 7.5 hours at sea!! Ryan picked us up at the pier after his work shift. We went home and washed up and then went out to dinner to watch his Mates play at a pub for "Aussie Day". While we were walking into the pub, about 30 "Flying Fox" bats were in the air! Almost looked like a Batman Movie!!

As for yesterday, it was monsoon weather outside, we went to the Rusty's Veggie & Fruit Market, did some mall ratting, booked our Reef snorkel trip for today, and then went to the movie "I am Legend!".

Tomorrow is a chill out day to recover fully from the boat, organize our gear, and finish arranging our travel plans for our journey west!

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