Walked off the ferry felt like we were walking onto a movie set. White sand beaches, bordered by palm trees swaying in the wind with a single boat anchored at the water’s edge. Picturesque.
We came on shore and rented some snorkeling gear because we heard there was exceptional diving off of Monkey Beach. So with our gear we made the 45 minutes hike through the bush to Monkey Beach. Now, I can’t tell you enough, hiking here is not like hiking at home. Because you spend most of your time on the coast or on islands in Australia there is sand everywhere. So when you hike your often hiking on sand. But a challenge as it is, it becomes downright uncomfortable when your doing it in a went bathing suit and flip flops.
But this was all expected and would have been alright, except I didn’t count on the flies flying in my ears and on my face the entire hike. Some people have their conscious on their shoulders, pirates get parrots, and I got “Buzz” and “Woody.”
That’s right. These two flies were with me for so long that I named them. “Buzz” for obvious reasons, and “Woody” so as to create a “Toy Story” Disney-like theme to my slow hike towards insanity.
Of coarse I was doing the “Aussie Wave” the whole time: this is when you shoo flies away from your face or body. Because the insects are so rampant and overgrown here this is affectionately referred to as the “Aussie Wave.” Charming.
Well we finally got to Monkey Beach and it was just as picturesque as the beach we arrived on, except we had the whole thing to ourselves. Pretty ideal. I was a little disappointed in the snorkeling though, we were out there for a while and hardly saw fish and saw many rocks but none of the colorful coral like I had seem at Lady Musgrave.
After a few hours of quiet, we hiked back and, loyal as dogs, the flies were back. And for the return trip I was wet and sandy and sticky from suntan lotion so I was feeling much less tolerant of our new island buddies.
By the time we got back to the main beach, I was literally running for the water tearing off shorts and shirts and properly jumped back into the water. I kid you not I heard those damn flies until my head was underwater. But it felt so good. It was like a gum commercial; REEEfreshing.
The Great Keppel Island was beautiful, but I would definitely recommend Lady Musgrave Island. Again we set out at 7:30 that morning to catch the ferry over to the island. So we get on the boat, and the Captain is introducing the crew and going over safety regulations when he goes, “… and in between your seats you’ll find your breakfast bag.” And I’m thinking, “Sweet, I didn’t get to eat breakfast,” so I dive in between these seats looking for the Breakfast Bag. The Breakfast Bag is a barf bag. Captain made a funny. And I was still hungry. Now on the brochure, that I know by heart, they had a list of things to bring and warned us to take seasick medicine if we needed it. But you see, sea sickness is a tricky thing in that you never know if it’s gonna happen to you until your on the boat. And of coarse at that point there’s no turning back.
The boat was called the “Spirit of 1770.” Impressive name, right? Ship was a roller coaster. The second we hit the big water I knew I was in trouble, and this was only the first ten minutes. The first ten out of an hour and a half voyage. And of coarse, I was sitting in the front like you do in a car to avoid getting sick. Not the same. About half an hour in my friend was like, “Are you okay?“ And the second I said to him, “I think I might be sick” I reached for my “Breakfast Bag.” I really thought I was going to lose it.
Now I should take a minute to appreciate the luck I have. In my travels I often find someone who I think of as a “mother.” Now these people are not always actual mothers, nor are they necessarily older than me or women.
Mothers (noun) Kind, maternal people that for some unknown reason take care of me. Bless them. Also see: Ariel San Jose
To be clear...
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So friend takes me to the back of the boat because apparently it’s a smoother ride. I thought I was about to lose it anyway so I went with him so that if nothing else I could lose it over the back of the boat. As it turned out it was a smoother ride, but at this point I felt so nauseous that I thought I was going to be sick anyways. Fairly sure of this, I urged Mother 1 to leave me alone mainly because it would have been embarrassing to throw up all over him.
At this point I’m just outside of the bathrooms, bracing myself on the back rail of the boat, a certain shade of green I’m sure, when Mother 2 swooped in. She was this really sweet woman, maybe mid 40s with her husband. She came over to me and knowingly brought me over to the side of the boat. It almost immediately cured my seasickness. And we saw dolphins and flying fish! I had no idea that flying fish could fly that far. Super cool. Eventually we got the Lady Musgrave Island.
Now the island itself is pretty, but not like the Great Keppel Island. The island is inhabited by Naughty Turns which are these really cute black birds that build their nests low enough in the trees that we would even see the baby birds. As we were on this hike through the island, all the women as cooing over the baby birds until people started to get pooped on. Suddenly the women who had been taking dozens of pictures of these birds were out of that forest like a bat out of hell. And the shores aren’t sand but instead this white coral that the sea cucumbers have it broken down into. It was weird to walk on, but really beautiful in it’s own way.
And YES! I went diving for my first time.
It’s one of those things that I thought to myself, “I had no inclination to do this at home.” But then it is the Great Barrier Reef and I can’t come all the way here without seeing it. Diving was such an unnatural feeling. When I first jumped in the water and put my head under I got scared and ripped out my mouth piece and came back to the surface. Totally freaked out. That was definitely the hardest part: remembering to breathe. At one point when I was at the bottom, I had somehow gotten my body into a pretzel and was trying to get out of it. So shaken up was I that I had been holding my breath and completely forgotten to breathe. I went between “Breathe, breathe, breathe” to Dori’s from “Finding Nemo,” “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.” I am a college graduate.
While we were down there the instructor had a bottle of fish food that squeezed empty and the fish just swarmed. It was scary but in a good way. These fish were each a little bigger than my fist and were completely surrounding us. But they were absolutely stunning and beautiful. I mean there were single fish that looked like rainbows. I’ve never seen anything like that. We also swam along the reef at the bottom and there were just entire schools of these black and white stripped fish everywhere.
And our instructors were so good. There we four of us in my group, none of whom had ever dived before, and they were like, “You can hold our hands if you get scared or nervous at any point, even the boys…” I totally would have taken them up on it but we ran out of instructors so I was on my own. As we were swimming I found it really difficult to keep my body horizontal, like everyone else. I kept coming down and getting dangerously close to crash landing on the coral – which in case ya didn’t know, is a big NO NO in this crowd. A couple times I kicked my friend in the face as I was trying to steer myself; accidentally, in case that wasn’t implied.
Still so much fun. The perfect place to take my first dive: relatively warm, not to deep, no currents. And I didn’t see anything scary: no sharks or stingrays or octopi. Only the friendly creatures of the sea like turtles and fishies.
I would say that snorkeling was much more visually impressive.
I did that for a couple hours and it was like “The Little Mermaid” with the colorful coral and the fishes everywhere. I half expected Sebastian to pop up and break into “Under the Sea.” My words can’t even do justice to what I saw. It was just breathtaking. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. It’s kind of like the salt-water tanks you see in the fish store, but like a hundred times better. At one point I just followed this little turtle down the edge of the reef.
And the whole staff was so great. The instructors were so enthusiastic and encouraging, the tour guide was incredibly well informed and familiar with the area, the crew was just funny and nice to be around. Totally worth my one day of work. Would have been down to do two days of work for how good this trip was.
And the bottom of the boat had little submarine portal windows to look out of. This was mostly good for watching people swim by, but the fish were cool, too.
There was this glass bottom boat that we went out on, and initially I thought we wouldn’t see anything. I mean you can see to the bottom because the water’s so clear, but you’re still in a
boat with a motor. But it didn’t matter, we saw a ton of fish and coral and this one massive turtle just chillin on the reef. I was just very pleased with the whole day. And then I slept the whole way back so I wasn’t seasick.
Definitely in the top five of the coolest things I’ve done in Australia. And I’m going to get diving certified in a couple of weeks when I get to Magnetic Island! I guess I’ll be getting over that whole scared of sharks and octopi thing.
XOXO
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