Today started as almost every day of our vacation. We will sum up our entire day minute by minute for you and this will take just a few paragraph. We slept in and when we got up and went to breakfast. It was overcast as everyday had been. Our praying for sun did not work. We stretched out breakfast to last about 30 minutes. Again, we ate cereal in warm milk and toast. After our meal it was back to our room as it was so cloudy, overcast and lightly raining so the pool and beach are not really doable. So after some reading and napping and reading and napping we ventured out of our room onto the porch. It was sprinkling and still grey and cloudy. Chester went for a walk on the beach and ... read more

Today started with a 5AM wake-up call to catch our flight from Brisbane to Fiji. We were graciously thanked for our stay by the Australia telecoms company by charging us $50 for 6 local phone calls, each call was less than 2 minutes. We had called around the find a fishing charter from the hotel phones after we had called reception to inquiry if there was a charge for this. Well there was not a charge for local calls, but a ridiculous charge for calls to mobile phones which are different than local calls. Not something the hotel would want to tell you when you specifically call to ask. We had a quick buffet breakfast and drove the hour plus to Brisbane. We arrived to a mother of all lines at the airport. After the Disneyland ... read more

Today started with sleeping in, which was a very welcome change. We caught a flight around noon from Cairns to Gold Coast. We have come to loath the Australian airlines and they have luggage requirements that are crazy as well as ridiculously expensive. So upon arrival to the counter, Kirsten instructed Chester to hide our backpacks as these along with our small roller carry-ons would put us over the weight limit and at $15/KG that can add up. All was looking good until Kirsten’s roller back was 3 KG over weight. So we had to get all of our bags and reorganize them to add more to the checked luggage and pay the difference. At this point we are not happy campers. We get everything switched around and had to throw out some stuff, like a ... read more

Today started with a 6:30 AM dive just as the sun was coming up. Can’t say getting into cold wet wetsuits was what we wanted to do that time of day but we were determined that it would be worth it during the dive. We did this dive on our own and the visibility was a bit better than the previous afternoon. But still a bit disappointing for the Great Barrier Reef. Chester was getting better with each dive and Kirsten realized if she let Chester suck off her tank for 5-10 min we could dive longer. After this dive we had a big breakfast and headed back to our room for a nap. The next dive was at 8:30 but as there is 6 dives in a day and you can only do 5, we ... read more

We had an early morning in Sydney to catch our flight to Cairns. As has happened with EVERY shuttle we were the first to be picked in Sydney at 6:15 and the last to be dropped off at our hotel in Cairns after 8 other drops. The 8KM drive took 90 min. We finally reached our hotel at 1:50 to have to wait another 30 minutes for our room to be ready. We did call our “awesome” (that is said with sarcasm) travel agent to ask about the dive boat info as we have 4 different conflicting addresses, locations and times. She asked how it was going and we said that the shuttles were getting ridiculous with how long they were taking. She said that is typical and it would have been cheaper and quicker to ... read more