Snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef

God its hot here, bloody hot, or as they say in North Wales when the clouds part, and the sun beats down on them, “What’s that?”

We signed up for a boat trip out to the coral reefs, 20 miles off Port Douglas.

Weather was fantastic. The only problem was that I was pretty scared. I have never been a strong swimmer and the thought of leaving a perfectly good boat into water that is deeper than the shallow end of the local swimming pool had me in a fluster, even before I jumped and breathed in my first mouthful of salt water.

It turned out my problem was I needed a shave and this was stopping me from getting a proper face seal with the mask. In the end I slapped a load of Vaseline over my upper lip. Granted I looked a bit of a k**b but it just about did the trick. Unfortunately I was a k**b a second time when I didn’t hire a waterproof camera so I don’t have any good pictures. Even so, we have our memories and they are enduring.

It’s something everybody should do, so many colourful fish and the odd Shark or two. Both Lucy and I had a great day. Unfortunately we were both K**bs later that day, me for the third time. Sun tan wise, I did not bother with pink, I even bypassed angry red and went straight to purple. Ooouuucccchhh! Lucy just kissed the back of my neck.

Lucy is out of it still. She can’t get used to the time zone and was awake till 03:00hrs. We had to be up at 06:25. Anyone who knows Lucy can hear the alarm bells ringing as they read. I bought some beers from a local store and cooked a BBQ and thought it was time to update the blog. Thanks to anyone who reads this, especially our kids. My style of writing may not be great but this is in reality a diary for us to look back at in the future. This is a once in a lifetime holiday so I am trying to keep it alive any way I can.