Heron Island (Great Barrier Reef) - Day 3

Today was my turn to dive! I showed up for my refresher dive at 8AM. I was a bit nervous since it had been at least two years since my last dive. Also I was still concerned about the sharks. I had to demonstrate a few skills such as taking the regulator in and out and goggle clearing. Now I was more confident about the dive.

We took a quick ten minute boat ride to dive site called Bommie.  The dive lasted about 45 minutes. I saw big and small colourful fishes, huge stingrays hanging out at the sandy bottom, a sea turtle with a coral stuck to his fin (he did manage to get rid of it when he started swimming), and white tip sharks.  I am glad I change my mind about diving.  It was one of the best dives I have ever done.  The only thing I notice was the coral wasn't as colourful as I thought.  I read somewhere Great Barrier Reef is dying at a rapid pace.  What a shame.  I only hope someday in the future Drake will be able to see the reef for himself too.

After lunch we took Drake to play in the ocean.  He splashed the water around, picked up shells and dug into the golden sand.  He absolutely had a ball.

Heron Island is surrounded by reefs that you can just walk to.  I strapped Drake in the Ergobaby and we went for a walk.  Drake fell asleep almost immediately.  The reef, of course, didn't have as many fishes around them as the Bommie, but if we looked closely we can still find little fishes and star fishes.

Tides started to come in.  Greg decided to go for a snorkel by the jetty and the HMCS Protector wreck.  He hadn't seen a sting ray yet, he was hoping to find one or two.  He came up short and didn't find anything too interesting.  I was able to spot a few lemon sharks and told him whereabouts from the jetty.  He wasn't fast enough to catch a glimpse.

I decided to go for a snorkel as well since it might be my last chance.  It turned out the lemon sharks hung around to say hello to me.  I came to about 3 feet with one.  As soon as I caught the face of the 5 foot fish with very intimidating teeth, I swam away as quickly as I could like a scaredy cat.

Heron Island is known for a lot of turtle activities and the resort offered free guided turtle watching at sunset.  We put Drake in the Ergobaby again and went for a little moonlight beach walk in search of baby turtles making their way to the ocean.  We were warned that this was the tail end of the turtle hatching season and the island had a very low activity level this season.  After a hour of walking back and forth, we saw a turtle nest which was just a pile of sand (the eggs were buried deep in the chamber).  We didn't see any baby turtles.

I guess yesterday we got rained in, today we did a lot to make up for the lost time.  I am a little sad we are leaving tomorrow.


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Location:Heron Island

Heron Island (Great Barrier Reef) - Day 2

Greg got up really early for a morning dive. The dives were 70 AUD each. Only the tank and weights were included in the price. BCD and other equipment can be rented from 7 to 22 AUD.

Drake and I slept in and went for a late breakfast. I had originally planned to snorkel only, but this is the GBR! After breakfast I signed up for a dive tomorrow.

Greg returned from his dive around 10:30. He had to do a refresher first which was right off the jetty and there were sting rays and sharks. Sharks!? What?! Hmmm... I'm not so sure about this. The dive trip was only 1.5 hours since they only had to go ten minutes out. He said the dive was amazing with more turtles and sharks. I was starting to get excited for my dive tomorrow.

The beautiful morning had turned into rain, so we lazed around the resort until lunch.

Greg went for his second dive in the rain at 3PM. The resort offered 3 dive trips per day: 9AM, 11AM and 3PM.

Upon his return I decided to go snorkeling off the jetty. Apparently the fishes liked to gather under the jetty to get away from the heat. Late afternoon was high tide and was a good time to snorkel. I saw a big turtle and lots of colourful small and big fishes. I came really close to a white tip reef shark, so I was told by Greg who was walking on the jetty with Drake. I was grateful I missed it. I had left my sandals on the beach but the tide had came in so fast in less than half hour while I was in the water.  I nearly lost the sandals if someone hadn't moved them to higher grounds.

It rained for the rest of the day and night. Hopefully tomorrow there will be sunshine.

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Location:Heron Island, Australia

Heron Island (Great Barrier Reef) - Day 1

This morning we caught the 8:50AM Virgin flight to Gladstone. The flight took just over an hour from Brisbane. Drake was an angle and slept through it. When we arrived, we were put on a bus for a quick ride to the marina where we were checked in for our 2 hour boat ride to Heron Island. This island is very small, it only has one resort and it is very famous for great snorkeling just off the shore.

We were told the sea was very rough today and were given ginger extract sea sickness pills. I also wore sea sickness wristbands. I felt covered. I was wrong. I should've known from the stash of barf bags on the table. The sea was so rough that it felt like a roller coaster ride that lasted 2 hours. Half of the boat had the barf bag attached to their faces. I lasted about 1.5 hours, then I up-chucked my morning salad. The boat crew was very experienced, they helped everyone switch out bags and handed out cold towels. Drake again slept through the entire ride.

I guess one has to ride through hell before arriving in paradise. We were greeted by the warm sea breeze as we stepped off the boat. The nausea disappeared instantly.

We grabbed a welcome drink and set our watch one hour ahead and then we were off to a late lunch at the restaurant. I was hungry since I left all my stomach content on the boat. The buffet style food was excellent. Lamb curry with rice, fresh arugula salad, antipasti and orange chocolate cake.

After lunch we found and settled into our room. The room was very roomy with full amenities. There were only a couple hours left before our preset dinner reservation (which was only done on the first night, after that we made our own). We decided to go walk around and get ourselves oriented. It was also happy hour at the bar. Greg grabbed a draft beer to go for 6 AUD (regular price 6.50 to 7 AUD).

There were a lot of different birds nesting in the trees. Good potion of the resort pathways were covered in bird dropping which smelled "great". Our room also came with ear plugs. Apparently these birds can be really disturbingly loud.

Dinner was again awesome. It was a seafood feast - raw oysters, smoked salmon, mussels, and really big prawns to start. I had dhal and rice for main and red velvet cake for the big finale.

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Location: Heron Island, Australia