Diving and bobbing is best in Water

This morning Garrett and I had our snorkeling adventure out to the Reef. Our fearless captain picked us up on what seemed to a glorified life raft. It was supposed to be just Garrett and I, but Captain Jason had picked up two other stowaways. A semi-crazy gypsy type woman and her 4-year old daughter.

The woman was a delight--obviously from the back country, but so positive and optimistic she was totally fun and hilarious.

The ride out was more like white water rafting as we "jumped" waves and held on for dear life. It was really fun.



We ended up at a couple different remote island coves where we did some snorkeling. The best part was when he gave us our sting ray protective suits and Garrett's literally hung on him. Cap'n Jason said he'd perhaps overestimated Garrett's size and maybe a Medium would do. Garrett stuck with his roomier version. You can see it's quite flattering.





Unfortunately I ended up getting a little seasick and washed myself up on shore after about 15 minutes of snorkeling. It was still a delightful day in beautiful water with great company - and a captain who offered to "massage me" to help with my seasickness. That's a new one. When I turned down the great offer he came over and trickled cold bottled water on my neck. At that point I told him I was much, much better.



Our time on Dunk had ended and Garrett and I made our way back to our little death-trap plane. Seated next to and in front of us was a family of four with a little girl and boy.

After about 20 minutes in to the flight we hit bad weather and our plane started getting tossed around quite a bit. Garrett seemed perfectly comfortable as he slept right through the dips and turns, but the woman in front of us started hyperventilating and crying. Her husband was holding her hand and trying to talk her down. The little boy started crying then too and sucking his thumb and basically they were all in a panic.

I have to admit it was pretty scary, but I was so torn between hilarity and panic watching the family in front of me that I couldn't think too much about my own fear. The woman kept turning to me and asking if I knew when we were landing. I've never seen anyone respond so strongly--she was terrified.

When we finally touched down the pilot said, "Thanks for flying with us, hope you enjoyed the flight." The lady looked at us in shocked disbelief and said, "Did he really just say that???" It was sort of a strange comment to make after all the terror.

One more night in Cairns and then off to see mom and dad in Alice tomorrow. Can't wait for the outback. Garrett has only told me 5 times today that he can't wait to be in Adelaide and done traveling. He's loving it!