Day 9: A Day at the Reef

In a word, today was incredible. Aside from the rough morning boat ride that took us out to Green Island, and eventually the Great Barrier Reef, today was as great of a last day as we could have asked for.

We woke up to scattered showers, which was definitely disappointing. The gloomy weather coupled with the rough choppy waters (which caused problems for many people on our boat) had people a little disillusioned with what was promised to be a day of fun. But once we made landfall at Green Island, people started to get a little color back in their cheeks, the rain stopped, and several of us ventured out for some snorkeling off the shore.

Pake Ebert and I on the Scuba-Doo's

From there, we endured another choppy boat ride to the outer reef, where we tied onto a large pontoon boat. No sooner had we gotten off the boat than the sun came out for the first time in days.

Here we had a multitude of activities to choose from, including scuba diving, snorkeling, taking a ride on a semi-submarine, or viewing fish from the underwater observatory. My personal favorite was taking the scuba-doo down to the bottom of the reef. For those of you that are wondering, the scuba-doo was basically an underwater scooter that we were able to drive around. Definitely a highlight of the trip.

After an afternoon on the water, we returned to the shore and had our farewell dinner at a churascaria. We're all trying to get a few winks in before our wake-up call at 3:00 here in a few hours. We have a 5:30 flight to Brisbane and from there we head back home to the U.S.

All good things must come to an end, and like most good things, the end has come too soon.