Hi there!
Sorry for the delay since my last blog update! I've been having problems loading photos through the blog site as well. Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures of the reef to post. My day out to the reef was amazing though!
We had met at Lady Musgrave Cruises at about 8:00 AM and headed out the boat. It was a rather large dual hual boat that could carry approximately 100 passangers. However, there was no where near that many when we went out. There may have been thirty people tops. The ride out to the island took about 1.5 hours and roughly half the boat was seasick by the time we reached Lady Musgrave Island. Thankfully I did not seasick my self. Though, I could feel it in my cheeks which was uncomfortable enough!
Once we reached the island our cruise boat docked on a floating pontoon where it was to be stationed for the day. The floating pontoon also had a much smaller glass bottomed boat which would allow us all to see the marine life below. Since most of the passengers became quite ill on the way over, the Skipper thought it was be a great idea for everyone to tour the island first. So we packed into the small glass bottom boat out to the island for a tour. This allowed everyone who became sick to calm down and become comfortable again. The island was pretty small, so the tour of the island only took about 40 minutes. Honestly, that was nice because I did not really travel 1.5 hours in rough seas to see a small island. I came to see the reef and thats all I wanted to see!
After our tour, we headed back to the pontoon were lunch, tea and coffee were provided. The lunch was a buffet style meal... from what I remember it was pretty good as I inhaled my food rather quickly. I immediately set out in search of a set flippers as well as a snorkle and mask so that I could head out into the water for the day. The water conditions were absolutely beautiful at the reef. The water was warmer than the air and it was quite calm. It was the first time in my life I was able to use a snorkle and not feel like I was about to drown due to waves crashing over my head!
The views below were absolutely amazing! I saw turtles, clown fish, and all other sorts of marine life! Majority of the time everything was so close I could touch it if I wanted too! (as I mentioned a bit earlier, I haven't been able to upload any photos to my blog for a bit so I've found a few online that should provide a fair representation of what I saw - Sea Turtle: http://maryt.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/great-barrier-reef-turtle.jpg Marine life: http://scienceguy288.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/barrier.jpg ) It was hard to imagine that it is beleived the Australian Gov't used the reef area in bombing practices around WWII!! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Musgrave_Island) I was a pretty amazing experiance and by far my favorite thing I've had the opportunity to see in Australia.
That's all for now, I promise I'll try to upload some photos of the reef and island as soon as I can. I hope all is well!
- Mike
