Friday June 18, 2010

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Today was the last day on the way for me in Airlie Beach. We got up around 5 and Daniele went to pick up the girls from their backpacker lodge. The weather was gorgeous, but the waves were a bit choppy even early on in the morning. We headed north and after hitting Mantaray Bay we turned around. About a half hour from the marina we stopped for a lunch break. I had already eaten, so I decided to go swimming. Even though I didn’t have a swimming suite I jumped in with my clothes anyways because the water was so warm! After a bit of swimming we headed back. Anna, Susanne and I went to check in for our trip while everyone else went home and unloaded the boat and truck.
Once back at the house we all cleaned ourselves up and rested for a bit. The girls and I had to be at the marina by 6:45 to leave for our trip so we got some food. At the marina, we waited with all of the other passengers, and wandered around for a half hour or so with Katharina, Guido and Daniele. Katharina pointed out to me the southern cross, a constellation that is actually on the Australian flag. After a while, one of the workers on the boat made an announcement stating that the boat would be boarding soon. She then stated that if we had banana’s we had to either eat them or throw them out as banana’s were bad luck to bring on board. Such an odd thing! They started to call names and Anna, Susanne and I said our good byes. We had to pay a $20 mandatory fee for stinger suits. A stinger suit is basically a thin cloth suit that you wear to protect you from jellyfish stings. This one happened to be a 1-3mm neoprene suit, which would in the long run be nice and help keep us warm. We walked down the boardwalk and were welcomed by the crew. The Anaconda III was a no shoe vessel, so good thing I only had my thin pair of flip flops with me. We were showed our room, and taken on a quick tour of the boat. It was a nice sized sailboat with about 32 passengers, a kitchen, living room and social room. After all the passengers had boarded we had a quick briefing about the boat and trip before setting sail. Afterwards all of the certified divers were separated from students and snorkelers. I decided to go for my advanced open water certificate and would be getting four dives, a booklet from which I had to study and do a few tests and I would have to do a short test on the last day. After all of the briefings we were able to socialize and do whatever we would like as the boat motored out of the harbor and sailed to wherever for the night. Interesting thing, no one on the crew including the skipper knew where we would go; and depending on the weather, current and tide we could potentially go anywhere. Anna, Susanne and I were pretty tired, so we headed to bed real early. It was nice to lay in bed and hear the water lapping at the side of the hull.

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