New Year's Eve Sydney Style - Monday, December 31

We woke up this morning early to pack up our cabin.  Sadly the diving is finished for this trip but we have lots more adventures to come.  It's raining on and off as we pull into the Cairns port and the mood is quiet on the Spirit of Freedom.  A few last goodbyes and we catch a cab to the airport for our flight to Sydney. 

The flight was a quick 2-1/2 hours and before we know it the pilot is making preparations for landing and we're flying over Sydney Harbor looking at all the boats anchored already to watch the fireworks.  We make quick work of getting organized and to the hotel so we can plan our evening.  It soon becomes apparent that watching the fireworks and Parade of Lights (boats all lit up with a Love theme this year) will be best done from the water.  Luckily we manage to find a large boat with space left by searching the internet and book our evening of food and fun. Fireworks are set off at 9:00 p.m. first.  They are so beautiful, we can't believe they are just a "warm-up" for the big display at midnight!  Our boat cruises around the harbor all evening waiting for the big moment.  At midnight we're in just the right place to view the harbor, the Opera House and the bridge.  The fireworks display lasts for a good 15 minutes and is spectacular!  What a fantastic way to ring in the New Year!  Happy New Year everyone!

Dive, Eat, Dive! - Friday - Sunday, December 28-30

This is our life on The Spirit of Freedom: up at 6:30 for a light breakfast, dive at 7:00, hot breakfast, dive at 10:00, have lunch on the top deck, dive at 1:00, afternoon tea served, dive at 3:00, dinner and then a night dive.  It isn't such a bad life!  I am always amazed at how hungry diving makes you!  The diving here is exceptional.  We see coral and fish for the first time in our lives.  I barely recognize anything underwater!  It's so different than the Caribbean diving we've done.  After the dives we look through the coral and fish books to try to learn some of their names.  It's tough.  On almost every dive we see SHARKS.  It's thrilling!  The best dive is the Shark Dive on Saturday morning.  We drop down and sit around a coral head.  The divemasters bring down a steel cage filled with huge tuna heads.  The sharks are already circling and waiting when we enter the water.  When the cage is opened the sharks fight and feed on the tuna.  There are about 40 sharks in the water only 2o feet from us!  It was awesome!  I'm looking forward to sharing that video with all of you!

Off to Lizard Island - Thursday, December 27

Up before the sun this morning.  We take one last run along the Esplanade in Cairns before breakfast.  We leave our hotel and head for the airport.  We are catching a very small airplane out to Lizard Island to meet up with the dive boat, The Spirit of Freedom!  There are only 12 seats on our little plane.  David and I manage to sit right behind the pilot.  We can see all of the gauges and dials and equipment as he's flying the plane.  It's really interesting.  One hour later we land on Lizard Island which is north of Cairns out on the Great Barrier Reef.  The island is teeny and it's HOT!  The boat is waiting for us in the bay.  We hop in the zodiac and off we go!  Once onboard, we go through briefings about living on the boat, briefings about diving, set up our gear on the dive deck and unpack our backpacks in our little room.  We do two dives in the afternoon.  It is wonderful to finally be here!

Bats and Boxing Day - Wednesday, December 26

It's Boxing Day here in Australia.  I offer Skittle Homework to any second grader who can tell me in January what Boxing Day is!  We are up early and back on the day boat for another day of diving.  Today we're asked if we'd dive with a woman, Libby, who needs a dive buddy.  We agree, and it's a really great thing that we do.  Libby is from Cairns and knows these reefs like the back of her hand.  She leads our dives and shows us amazing corals and our first sighting of Clownfish in their anemone!  She is taking pictures while we're underwater and promises to send them to us.  Later in the day we're walking through Cairns running some errands, and we hear screeching up in the trees.  At first we think it's birds but on closer inspection we see BATS!  Hundreds of them hanging upside down getting ready for the evening.  They are huge!  I'm pretty sure they're fruit bats (flying foxes).  When they fly they look more like birds because of their wingspan.  Cool!

Merry Christmas - Tuesday, December 25

It's a beautiful sunny morning today.  After eating breakfast we head down to the dock at 7:30.  We get everything in order with the dive masters and set up our dive equipment down on the dive deck.  The ride out to the Great Barrier Reef takes about 90 minutes.  Along the way we watch some sea birds diving for their breakfast in the waves.  I spot a few dolphins off in the distance.  Soon the water gets more and more shallow and we've arrived!  I'm so excited to get in the water.  Downstairs on the dive deck it's complete pandemonium!  There's divers and snorkelers everywhere trying to get ready.  There's no room for trying to wiggle into your wetsuit or even put on your BCD.  It's crazy.  Finally we get into the ocean and begin our dive.  Right away we notice that the colors of the coral are very vivid - they almost seem to glow.  David spots a turtle right away and we follow it for a good 10 minutes.  We watch it eating and swimming.  It's so beautiful.  There are so many fish on the reef that it looks like an aquarium!  Many of the fish are enormous - up to three feet long.  We don't recognize a lot of the fish, but we'll learn their names soon I hope.  I don't see any clown fish (Nemo) on this dive.  After lunch we dive again.  David spots a shark (he has good eyes today) about 10 minutes into the dive.  It's resting on the sandy bottom.  The shark begins to swim lazily toward us, but then changes direction when other divers come near.  I was really hoping to see it up close.  There are many different types of sea cucumbers on the sand.  Some are so fat and prickly looking.  I wonder what they feel like.  Not many big fish on this dive, but lots of small reef fish everywhere.  The parrot fish with their big front teeth look so goofy.  They make me smile.  It was a lovely day of diving, especially since we got to see a turtle and a shark on Christmas!  Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas Eve in Cairns - Monday, December 24

We are met at the airport by one of the staff from the dive boat.  She lets us know that Qantas is flying our luggage to Cairns, and they will deliver it to our hotel around 6:00 this evening.  She drives us to our hotel and along the way lets us know that she's arranged for us to dive on the day boat tomorrow and Wednesday.  On Thursday we'll take a small charter plane out to Lizard Island on Thursday to meet up with the live aboard.  We treat ourselves to a lovely hotel for the next three days.  It's so hot and humid here!  The sun is shining and it's about 90!  What a change from Colorado!  David buys a pair of shorts and we hit the streets to check out Cairns.  Only about 125,000 people live here.  It's quite hilly and very tropical.  The town is surrounded by rainforest.  After lunch at an outdoor cafe we head down to the marina and check out the beautiful boats in their slips.  Back at the hotel, the valet brings our luggage to our room earlier than expected.  It's the best Christmas present this year!  We change into our running clothes and run along the esplanade as the sun is setting.  We are dripping wet by the time we get back.  During dinner it begins to rain so hard that they have to drop the awnings to keep customers from getting soaked.  Neither one of us can remember the last time we saw it rain that hard.  It cools things off for a short time, but the humidity just gets worse. 

Dateline Sunday - Sunday, December 23

We left Los Angeles at 10:40 p.m. and 15 hours later landed in Sydney, Australia on Monday, December 24 at 7:50 a.m.!  What does one do on an airplane for that amount of time?  Eat dinner, read a magazine, sleep 7 hours, stand in line for the bathroom, stand and stretch a stiff body, read an entire book, eat a snack, eat breakfast, fill in Australian arrival card, sleep some more, and before you know it, you've arrived!  We breeze through customs and the first person we talk with about our luggage knows instantly that our bags left San Francisco last night and are scheduled to land in an hour!!  We are so happy to finally get some good news!  Unfortunately we won't be able to make the ship since our bags haven't caught up with us yet.  We freshen up at the Sydney airport, take a bus from the international terminal to the domestic terminal and catch the plane for the three hour ride to Cairns.  Yeah!  More flying time!

Start Over Saturday - Saturday, December 22

This morning is spent on the phone trying to find our luggage.  Some agents at United think it's in San Francisco, some think it may be in Denver and some don't have any idea where it is.  We contact our travel agent, Lisa, and she begins to work on solving our biggest problem: the live aboard dive ship is scheduled to leave Cairns on Monday, December 24 and we won't be on it!  I try also to find flights that will get us from Sydney to Cairns in time to make the ship.  I find two alternatives that will get us there on time as long as we find our luggage.  We go for a run around our neighborhood trying to relieve some of the stress.  It doesn't work very well.  Back at the airport for our 6:00 flight to Los Angeles.  At LAX we're told that our luggage didn't make it in time for our flight to Sydney.  The gate agent thinks it may be in Denver.  What else can we do but get on the plane?  We decide to go shopping once we're in Australia.

Drama In Denver - Friday, December 21

We made it to the airport and are so excited to be starting a new adventure!  When we get to our gate we notice that our plane is delayed due to "air traffic control" issues.  We found out later that the horrible snowy weather in the mid-west has made the air traffic so heavy over Denver that they don't have the capacity to let all of the planes takeoff and land that need to.  As soon as a second delay of our flight to San Francisco is announced, we head to Customer Service realizing that we'll never make our connection.  After two hours spent with an agent, we head back up the hill and collapse into bed at midnight.  Our luggage, however, decides to go on vacation to San Francisco without us.