Traveling with Ray Owens

Day 6 Sunday January 19

The great snorkeling adventure is now upon us. We have questions: Will Penny and I back out of the adventure? Will we be able to wriggle into to the wet suit light that prevents being stung by the tiny little jellyfish floating in the water? Will the excursion personnel take a look at me and ask “would you like to sit this one out?”

The answers are NO, YES, with a great deal of effort , NO, we were below the average in terms of age and above in terms of mobility. Yea us!

It turns out that we have 78 people in our little club of adventurers and we have 2 Viking guides to shepherd us and remind us to take and drink water, wear our seat belts on the couch, and to reapply sunscreen.

We began our day by having Dan and Dannia divide our 78 explorers into two groups. They did that by holding stuffed animals so we could remember which group we are in. Penny, Frank, Jeanette and I were in Dan’s Koala group. The rest were in Dannia’s Wombat group. I was a little disappointed when Dannia explained how cool Wombats are. For example, Wombats are the only animals that have cubbed shaped POOP. Google it, it is true.

We loaded the coaches and drove about 2 miles to the Port Douglas port and there we met the good folks who would take us aboard the good ship Calypso to take us on an 1.5 hour boat ride out to the Great Barrier Reef.

I did get nervous when I realized that with the return to port we would be going on a “3 hour tour”. Gilligan and Mary Anne were not on our boat so I calmed down.

We left sight of land and arrived in one area of the Great Barrier Reef. According to Wikipedia “The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef system, composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over 2,300 kilometers over an area of approximately 344,400 square kilometers.” We did not see it all.

The crew were very knowledgable and provided us with swim fins, googles and a snorkel, and the jellyfish suit and a pool noodle.

We concluded doing the Hoochy-Coochy and manage to get our suits on. Then it was over the back of the boat, where there is a 4 step stairway into the water.

My first time snorkeling and I have got to say it was VERY VERY good. I was giddy. The reef is not as bright as some of the movies I have seen. But there were lots of things to see. Reports when back on board were that we all saw different things. I saw mainly small fish but did find Nemo. Others saw turtles and sting rays. (Not me, I did not sting anyone)

After about 45 minutes we all lumbered back into the boat slowly. They provided lunch which was very good. They provided several meats and jumbo boiled shrimp (Australians cook their shrimp just like they come out of the ocean. Head, feet and all. I took two and did the task of removing the head and shell. The would have been better deep fried and just the tails. But still OK.

After lunch they moved the boat to a different part of the reef. Frank and I left our jellyfish suits on but Penny and Jeanette decided they did not want to reenter the waters at this stop. Frank and I did and we got to see more fish. The current took us away from the boat which was fine. That is until we wanted to make our way back to the boat which was a battle going against the current.

Fun was had by all. The return 1.5 hour boat cruise found many of my fellow adventurers nodding off for a nap. It seems that nap taking is not just a feature of getting old in the Owens’ household, but it is pretty universal for folks in our age group.

It was a good, nay, a very good day!