Reef day! I cannot express how excited I was this morning. 6:15 was breakfast and we set out to the reef around 7:20. Ross, one of our resident coordinators, took us to this little coffee shop- cruze coffee, and it was coffee paradise. I was in love. I think I may have whispered “i love you” when I entered the premises. It was run by a native Florence Italian and it was just beautiful. The way to order coffee over here is by three different categories: Long black, short black, and flat white. Long black is where you have a shot of expresso and then filled with hot water; short black is where you also have a shot of expresso but you pour milk instead of hot water; flat white you have one shot of expresso, mix it with milk and you have a foamy layer on top with shaved chocolate sprinkled over. Then there’s ice coffee. So delicious. I think I’m going to get that tomorrow, but for iced coffee, they put two scoops of fresh vanilla ice cream in the cup, then pour over your chosen expresso, top it off with some whipped cream and shaved chocolate. Yum. Today I got a flat white. On the counter top, there was about ten lines of just different kind of coffee beans in weaved baskets. You choose which kind of coffee bean you would like, and the barista would take a scoop of the selected beans and pour it into the coffee grinder. bada bing, bada boom, you get your hot black coffee, flavor of your choice. Deliciouso. I ordered the Australian pearl with hazelnut and macadamia. An explosion of flavors.

Back to the reef. So we all took a 2 hour long ferry ride out to the Great Barrier Reef. The crew on the ship were fantastic and they were hysterical. The captain- Popeye, I kid you not, was great as well. I actually got to stand with him up in his steering deck. Pretty awesome. Simon- the main guy in charge of the crew was the absolute best.

Oh! Side note here, Australians are really funny. Their humor is fantastic.

The group of us 9 girls head out to the front of the ship to relax. This morning was a bit misty and cloudy, but no worries there, the weather became bright, sunny, and tan worthy a few minutes after. In the front of the boat, there were two big nets on each side of the boat where people can just slip onto and chill. So that was exactly what we did. Man was it glorious. Then, those who were scuba diving (ME!) had a debriefing before we made it out to the reef. As we sailed on, someone shouted “Whale!” Indeed. There was a whale spotted just yonder. I whale watched and I loved it. The first whale watch was supposedly a mother and a baby swimming. The mother was pushing her baby up to the surface to breathe supposedly. The second spotting was a whale’s tail. The tail was sticking straight up out of the water and Popeye claims that it was a female whale giving birth. Awesome. Some people around the bend even claimed that whales might be mating, but they were incorrect.

…

Wetsuits. Have you ever put one on? Those things will get ya. They are tight, damp, and boy are they tight. Me, Kelley, Joanna, and Sydney were the only ones in our group that dove. The rest settled with snorkeling. We got in our gear and Simon then directed us to another crew member, who did not give me his name, so I shall call him Tampa. I call him Tampa because he is actually from Tampa, FL and has been in Cairns for almost a year! Sadly he is leaving soon, so he can get a sponsorship for a work visa. Simon directed us to Tampa and he put us in front of our scuba gear and fixed all of us up.

“diverse pic”

Reason for the captioning is because, Ross, remember the resident coordinator I was talking about? Well after he took this pic, he said that we needed to remind him to send him this picture for him to put it on the GlobaLinks website…

All dressed and ready, we lined up in a row and headed down the stairs to jump into the water. Walking in fins is not the simplest task. I looked like a duck trying to imitate a sumo wrestler. Imagine that. I put one foot out and stepped down. I did a graceful bellyflop and held onto the rope I was instructed to hold on to. We then all proceeded to practice out all the necessary procedures that we had to do once down under.

The ocean, the great barrier reef, is magical. All the colors of blue surrounding me was just magnificent. I don’t think I have ever seen something as beautiful as this before. Nature really is exquisite. We all started out hanging onto our instructor but then a few minutes later, we were allowed to let go and roam around on our own. Not too far, but far enough to have some space to do dolphin flips. I swam across a school of fish and saw nemo swimming in and out of the anemone. I even ran into Dory.

heyheyheyyy

trying to smile with a mouthpiece in is pretty difficult, so I took Tyra Bank’s advice and tried to “smise”. I think it went… OK…?

nemoo!

squishy

fiiishhh

Beautiful coral

These pictures don’t even do the actual reef any justice. After 35 minutes of me roaming around under the sea, it was time to rise up. When we were all back on the boat again, Kelley informed me that while I was off swimming around, there was a fish, almost the size of me, was swimming right on top of me. She was clapping her hands under the water to catch my attention, but I didn’t hear her. haha oh man. Anyways, we all laid out for a bit in the net and ate some seaside lunch, which wasn’t the most appetizing but was edible enough. The next stop was at a little beach island where we could snorkel to and “tan”. So we did just that. We grabbed out flippy floppys and our masks and jumped into the water. The first five minutes of swimming in turquoise water was great. Fish swam next to me, under me, between me. It was great. Then I saw coral. Now before the fish even set sail, Popeye informed us not to step on the coral because it will hurt them and it takes 20 years for a little piece of coral to grow. So as I was snorkeling, more like drinking up my s

odium intake, I was admiring the beautiful coral underneath me. At first, the coral was a good distance away, and then all of sudden, bam. It was merely inches away from my body. This was the most terrifying experience of my life. I sucked in everything I could suck in just so I wouldn’t touch the coral, and I was in superman position- kicking. I was hyperventilating and I could not breathe. I thought I was trapped and wouldn’t ever be able to escape the coral closing in on me. By this point, the coral did not look beautiful and magnificent to me anymore. Instead, they all looked like life-threatening rocks trying to swallow me. Finally I made it out and I rejoiced to no end. We made it! When we left the beachy island, we took a little boat back. There was no way I was going to swim back again. If anything had to die, I might as well go instead of the precious coral. jokes. When we got back, we had time to take some showers and then we left for dinner. Dinner, I got in touch with my heritage. Oh yes. Cafe China. Granted I’m not from China, but you get the gist. We went and we ate.

Sidenote: SO MANY ASIANS here. I am definitely not a minority. I was shocked to see swarms of asians walking around. And if you know me any better, you’ll understand why I felt the way I felt. One funny story: One night, all of us went to Gilligans’ (the hostel we’re staying at) bar, and when the previous nights when we went, it was good and chill, but this particular night was not the case. The bar was bumping… with gyrating asians. I kid you not. These asians were just gyrating on the floor, well attempting to at least. When I saw this occurrence, I wanted to skidaddle out of there. But we staying for a few minutes, and when we finally escaped, I rejoiced. The rejoicing was more satisfying than the rejoicing I did when I made it out of the coral.

Back to dinner. We ate and we left. Good catch up right? We came back to Gilligans and basically went to sleep… after we went bar hopping. That was a bust. One of the girls on the trip, while we were waiting outside of WoolShed (bar), her stomach wasn’t being too friendly with her and the accompaniment of chinese food. I was a lucky one and was sitting next to her. The rest of the group then came over to chat with us, and suddenly an interesting aroma came about and Joanna goes… “yup”. All of became hyenas. Meaning, we laughed til we were lying on the cement. She had to run back to Gilligans’ to settle her stomach down. Too funny. When we got back to the rooms, she came out of the toilet with a smile from ear to ear. She’s better.

Tomorrow we have our half day adventure. I will be jumping my life away. Skydiving to be specific. Here’s to tomorrow’s weather to be nice and sunny! ‘Cause the word on the street is that if it’s cloudy and rainy, they cancel…. please please please, let the sun come out!

“The great difference between voyages rests not with the ships, but with the people you meet on them.” — Amelia E. Barr