Blogs from open water, Cairns, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 13

By now, I’m starting to think that I got my money’s worth in terms of diving. I really want to go again, but the energy to jump into my freezing cold, wet wetsuit and breathe dry compressed air for an hour has dwindled slightly. That, and the fact that my ears are expanding in order to compensate for diving to depth so much, has allowed me the opportunity to take it easy today. I did one REALLY nice dive with the guys and then hung around the boat for the rest of the day. On the dive, called Fantasia, we cruised around and found some really cool terrain. There was a decent size cave that we all gave a go, one at a time, and we swam through a group of probably 40 yellow-tailed barracuda…they were ... read more

July 5, 2006 6:30 am wake up call. WHAT!?!?! Oh wait, lemme back up. 3am informal wake up call. The boat was cruising to the first location, about 10 miles off of lizard island, which is about 100 miles from the nearest thing I could name. The form of the informal wake up was actually my luggage case falling from the cabinet, because the waves had forced most of the room upside down. I covered my head, thinking maybe something might fall on top of me. But nothing did. The boat rocked very hard. I went from weightless to flopping onto my bed, back to weightless again, in the same general rhythm one might expect from a snoring symphony. But this was a little different. Eventually, I got to sleep- and although to this point at ... read more

I just got in from SKYDIVING :) It was sooo fun. I got mom and enid to do it too...ahaha they were funny. So, yeah I skydivid! i g2g Love you all!! ... read more

Anna, Mom, Enid and I are in Cairns now. We got here last night. My wrist is feeling a lot better. We went to Fraser Island for two days 1 night, that was great. lake McKenzie was Awesome. Now, we are in Cairns...Anna and I are going on a scuba diving boat day cruise and skydiving. Should be lots of fun. The weather is really nice, hot, very hot. Its pretty expensive here, but after here I wont be spending too much money. Hope all is great there inCanada, and with everyone. Ill be home around July 25th. Our next stop after Cairns is Alice Springs, Ayres Rock at Uluru....Good times ahead. Have a good summer everyone!! see you soon --- Love Steph xoxox... read more

Our last trip in Australia was to the Great Barrier Reef! We visited the Saxon and Hasting Reefs on the outer edge. Unfortunately, the coral gets its spectular colour (reds, oranges, blues) from the sun, and for the last 3 weeks it's been really cloudy here. This is the best time of year to visit the reef normally - Cairns's winter is their dry and therefore peak season, but it's been really gloomy, (they think due to Cyclone Larry a few months ago affecting the weather). And so our visit to the reef wasn't as colouful as we had hoped, but still fun. Saxon reef was our first stop, and was pretty dull. It was also really windy and all the waves kept splashing over us and into our snorkles. I was also stung by some ... read more