glub glub

today kristan and i went to the great barrier reef. we got up super early and walked to a boat, got on it, lathered on "sun cream" and headed out. now, here is the thing, for those of you who know me understand that i have a completely irrational fear of deep water. so i thought i was doing great when i signed up for the brief ten-minute trial run for scuba diving. after ten minutes of being comfortable, you have the option to go on a full dive.

so. we get this cape thing where there was reef, but not "the great barrier reef," they put a ridiculously heaving breathing thingy on your back, along with weights to help you sink, and you jump into the water and hold onto a rope. soo...it's really hard for me to breath out of my mouth unless i'm sick right? so i was having a hard time, even though these amazingly rad fish were swimming all around. big flat batfish or something. anyways, i kinda freaked out and got out. BUT kristan when on the full trip and got to touch sea turtles! so jealous. but i was so safe on that little boat, out of the water. she said at one moment she had a slight panic attack and thought she couldn't breathe, so she had to come to the surface for a hot second.

oh, did i forget to mention we put on these ridiculous stinger-resistant suits? if you read my last blog, you'd know it was jelly season down here. we looked amazing.

while she was swimming with the fishies, i went over to the cape thing. there's only about a 100 foot stretch of the island people can be on because it's a bird sanctuary, but that's cool. i grabbed a little floaty device so i couldn't drown and snorkeled around for a bit. and it was AMAZING. giant clams, such colorful coral, bunches of fishes. i didn't see any turtles when i was under, but i saw one when i got back on the boat.

THEN they took us to the reef where we could snorkel around. also very very beautiful. there were weird table-like formations, the "brain" reef, parrot fish? and bunches of other stuff. it was a great experience even though my throat was pretty sore from ingesting all the salt water. oh, and i didn't wear my stinger suit the second time around. teeny tiny coral pieces break off and kinda poke you in the bod as you're swimming around, which tended to freak me out, thinking it was a jelly, but i was luckily wrong.

so then we made our way back, got a lil' sunburnt, and drank some toohey's. such a good day overall. tomorrow we meet the koala bears.