Thursday - I found Nemo!

I can honestly say – Thursday was my absolutely favourite day – we did and saw amazing things and this update is probably going to be a long one! We all got up in the morning for some brekky and got ready to go snorkelling/diving – while getting the boat (dingy) ready the dolphins were out to play again! They were further away but I did manage to snap a picture of them! I love seeing animals in their natural habitats!

Look Carefully! They are to the left of the picture

Anyway we all strapped on our stinger suits and masks and snorkels and got ready for our full day of snorkelling. The first stop was pretty much where we were anchored so we didn’t have far to go – we headed out at 8:30am and didn’t get back on the boat until noon – so plenty of time! The snorkelling was amazing – there was pretty coral and tons of fish! At one point – Ash & Tim (part of the crew who were in the dingy) were feeding the fish right in front of us. They were jumping out of the water – they were hitting us in the face – it was pretty funny! We even saw the squid from the previous night! I even found Nemo – and thanks to my underwater camera there are amazing pictures. The sand on this beach – well let’s just say it wasn’t soft! It was coral that had been broken off from waves over the past 100 years and washed ashore. It was so painful to walk on you definitely did need shoes! Lise wrote our names with some of the shells – it was cool…

Looks cool - not so pleasant on the feet!

Thumbs up!

After spending the morning snorkelling we headed back to the boat for some grub and relaxing until we reached our second destination for snorkelling! The second place they referred to as the sand spit! It was literally a sand spit covered in 360 degrees of water! It was a one tiny island of sand, when the tide was out you could walk from one end of it to the other – but when the tide was in half the island would disappear under the water. It was absolutely stunning and we spent the whole afternoon here until sunset (keep in mind we are heading into ‘winter’ here so sunset is pretty early). Anyway the sand at this one was a combination of the pure white silica sand found at Whitehaven and the reef sand found at the first place we went snorkelling this morning. So we went out snorkelling for a few hours and guess what we saw? TURTLES! Tons of turtles were swimming around – there had to have been 5 – it was awesome! I got some pretty cool pictures of the turtles.

The sand spit - 2nd destination for a snorkel!

the sand spit - surrounded by 360 degrees of water

Turtle #1!

Can you see it's head??

Turtle # 2!

 After we snorkelled the length of the island we headed in for a rest. Once on the island a massive stingray swam by the shore I was too far away to run and snap a picture but I did see it in the water! This trip just keeps getting better and better! We spent the rest of the afternoon on the spit, soaking up the sun and playing a wicked game of beach volleyball! After realizing we were all starving from our big snorkel Tommy (our Kiwi bartender) and Knickers (our awesome cook) headed back to the boat to get some crackers and cheese and of course beer to satisfy our appetites! What better way to spend a day? Only it really did get better! After our afternoon tea – the sun began to set over the near my mountains – this country sure does make me look like a good photographer!

After the sunset we headed back for some dinner and our last night on the boat L. Dinner that night was roast beef with potatoes, roasted veggies and salad – so tasty! We definitely didn’t go hungry on the boat. After dinner – Tommy came out donning a pirate costume and he told us we better be ready for some entertaining games! Uh oh…. So we got in 4 teams of 8 – the first game we played involved carrying an orange under your neck and a pole thing in between your legs and running around the entire mid deck like this and then of course passing these two objects onto the next person using no hands. Yep definitely entertaining!

Stupid orange game

Passing of the orange - and stick thing

 The second game Timmy had made up – it was called spider web. Basically it was a net they had tied to the pillar – and the entire team had to get through it. The rules were only one person could go through one of the holes, each player couldn’t touch the rope, and each team was going to be timed, the team who could get through the fastest won. Well the holes were small and it would involve some lifting. We were the third team to go – the other two times were (almost) 9 minutes and 5 minutes. We got out entire team through in just over 3 minutes  - we had beat all of the other teams by a solid two minutes! I say it was due to our teacher planning that did it – we all picked out a hold before we started, and then we just went – we were all-stars! The prize was a ‘Tommy Special’ (which had become famous by this part of the night). They were alcoholic beverages with vodka, solo (aka lemonade) with a dash of orange liqueur and grenadine – every single person on the boat had at least one! That pretty much wrapped up the evening – everyone then just kept drinking and having a really good time!  

The spider web - another team lifting thier teammates through!