Brisbane, Australia

I am feeling refreshed after my day of R and R yesterday so I was awake by 5;00 AM.

Today started a bit differently as both Bob and I had breakfast because we have a lengthy excursion in which we may want to skip lunch.

Today's excursion is Lady Elliot Island. We are taking a charter plane to Lady Elliot Island for snorkeling.

We boarded our bus and were off to the airport by 8:24 AM. There are only 11 of us on the excursion. The trip to the airport was 45 minutes.

Upon arriving at the airport, we immediately split into two groups. Our group had 5 passengers. We boarded our charter plane for the 1.5 hour flight.

The scenery from our plane was spectacular. We flew over the Australian coastline that included beautiful beaches, bays where whales come to give birth, rainforest, and amazing colors in the water.

After a none too smooth landing on a grass runway, we had arrived at Lady Elliot Island. We knew that our time on the island would be short so we quickly made our way to get fitted with mask, fins, and snorkels. We then boarded a open air truck and were transported to the beach.

We waded out to catch our boat that would transport us to the snorkeling area. The boat had a glass bottom that one could actually see through. We made a 15 minute cruise to view the reef through the glass bottom before arriving at our snorkeling location.

Bob and I had brought our full face snorkeling mask. We were told that we could not use them and would have to use one of their masks and snorkels. They explained that people had died from using the full face masks. We thought that this was ridiculous but didn't have much choice so we were given their masks and snorkels.

We quickly jumped in the water and were treated with a spectacular reef system. Bob and I have never seen a reef this healthy. It was truly breath-taking. Bob's snorkel malfunctioned twice so he had to have it replaced twice. This limited our time even more.

We saw numerous fish, turtles, sharks, not to mention every type of coral one could imagine.

I had borrowed Jenni's waterproof camera. Shortly after I jumped in the water, I looked down and the camera's battery compartment was open. I lifted it out of the water and immediately knew that I had just fried Jenni's camera. I feel so horrible! I will be looking to try to replace the camera in Cairns.

Far too soon, we heard the boat signal for us to return. Bob and I were two of the last people back on the boat.

We asked if we could skip lunch and snorkel from shore. They agreed. So we dumped our belongings on a lounge chair and headed for the water. One of the dive instructors accompanied us along with the assistant cruise director, Michael. We spent about 30 minutes snorkeling before we were told that we had to head back. Michael and I made it passed the channel where the dive boats come in before the dive instructor and Bob. As a result, they had to pause and wait for the time boat to pick up divers and exit the channel. During this time, the instructor and Bob saw a white tipped shark before joining Michael and myself.

We then hurried back to the lodge. We were running a bit late so I just ran to the bathroom and made a quick change into dry clothing. Bob was able to get a quick shower. We stopped by the gift shop and purchased some T-shirts.

We were then told it was time to leave. We walked across the runway and boarded the plane at 2:00 for our 1.5 hour flight. We landed at 3:30. We were to be back onboard ship at 4:00. Since we had at least a 45 minute bus ride, no way were we going to make it on time but since this was a Viking excursion and we had the assistant cruise director with us, I knew the ship would not depart without us. In fact, Michael had been texting the Captain to let him know our status.

We had heavy traffic due to an accident so we didn't get back to the port until 4:30 and had to make our way through the longest cruise terminal imaginable.

Once we made it to our stateroom, we were finally able to take a minute to reflect on our day as we felt like we were running at breakneck speed the entire day. Our reflections included the fact that it was a long day of travel for what amounted to be only about 2 hours on Lady Elliot Island. We also would not have missed this for the world! The reef was so amazing!

Since I destroyed Jenni's camera, I do not have any underwater pictures that I took but one of the dive masters sent some photos to Michael's iPhone. I am now working on getting a copy of them and will post these pictures when I receive them.Read more