FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX: Goodbye GBR Hello Port Douglas

Fun fact: Did you know that clownfish has one dominant female? If that female dies, the remaining males fight to be alpha and turn into a female!

It had all caught up with us. We couldn’t muster ourselves to get up for the sunrise dive, our exhaustion out-trumped the Asianness of squeezing everything out of something we’ve paid for as well as MOFO.

We caught up with Amy over breakfast and made a plan for the our last day on the boat. Mal and the children completed the rest of the required skills session over the next two dives whilst I enjoyed leisurely snorkels. Although to be honest, leisurely was somewhat of a stretch as I always felt tired after each session! After lunch, the diving paperwork was finalised and voila! We now have 3 certified divers in the family!

We made up for our lack of Asianness in the morning with some bargaining with the boat photographer. Mal was delighted with his success and we were fortunate that he did as we discovered later that we had problems with our own footage (keep reading).

Our rental camera was pot luck. Half the time we couldn’t see the footage we were taking, and we couldn’t take the SD card out of its waterproof casing to check on the laptop. We were very excited to see the videos and photos that we took only to find out after we had arrived at Port Douglas that we couldn’t read the SD card! At least we had the professional photographer’s photos thankfully.

Waffles with maple glazed bacon...mmm

Last two dive sessions

They are certified!!

Lunch - beef schnitzel burger. It was really good!

Farewelling the amazing Amy. We never tip but we did this time!

We packed and waited to transfer across to the Reef Experience at 1430 to take us back to the mainland. We arrived back at the Marina at Cairns well before 1630. Once there, we apparently picked an uber that took the longest time just to drive 1.5km…we finally got to East Coast Car Rentals to pick up our Kia. The kids said it was so small it could have been a go-cart. Too bad, it was the only car that didn’t cost a fortune…

Our drive to port Douglas was only 56 min but felt long because we were so tired. We ditched plans to visit Brian & family and checked into the Pullman Sea Temple Resort. Our 2-bedroom apartment was lovely but the reviews will have to wait until tomorrow. Although Mal and I were so happy to see a King bed...lol..how we miss a BIG bed!

We had a dinner reservation at Zinc at 8:15pm. By this stage everyone was grumpy. We were fortunate to be able to dine earlier and we were out of there by 8:15pm. The general mood was considerably lifted by the sight of green and gold Aussie fruit loops, and creamy honey oatmeal at the convenience store next door. So much for the wagyu steak, salmon carpaccio, squid salad and seafood linguine we just had!

Thank you Reef Encounter for our phenomenal experience at the Great Barrier Reef. We would definitely recommend it if you are interested in diving.