Finding Nemo: Real Life Edition!

Great Barrier Reef
We went to the coral reef and it was AWESOME!!! We started out the journey by walking to the marina and we were assigned a number to keep a tab on while we were on the boat. The boat ride to the reef was about 2 hours which did not seem long at all after flying all that time. Many people sunbathed/fried or talked and walked around on deck. Before arriving on the reef it was predetermined who was snorkeling or scuba diving was; since neither of us are certified divers we went snorkeling all day. The first location that we got to explore was covered in really cool blue sea stars and giant clams and let us tell you they were ginormous. They had green mouths that opened and closed and it was really interesting. It was so pretty and so awesome with all the different kinds of fishies and coral around us. We took about 40min in videos on the flip before we realized that we were going to another location. Scott forgot his underwater camera but it wasn’t too bad because you can get pictures from the videos and it would be difficult to get good pictures the first time because we ended up chasing fishies with the Flip. Getting into the water and snorkeling for the first time was crazy for Scott; he almost threw up like three times for getting too much salt water in his mouth. After we finished at the first location we all got back onto the boat we had lunch. It was a buffet style and pretty decent food and you got to back up as many times as you wanted to; there were sandwiches, pasta, salad, rolls, fruit, shrimp like things, and a few other things. We then went to the second location after we all finished lunch. Before we even got into the water we saw these huge fish that were swimming right next to the boat. Some were called bat fish and the other fish were called ember or something like that. They were not afraid of us getting into the water at all! We liked the second spot better because there were so many schools of fish that swam right around us. We saw the parrot fish that were eating off some coral like they have never eaten before in their life. We could hear them under water and the flip picked up their noises too. These fish reminded me of underwater pigs haha. Then Morgan swam closer to the sea floor because she was following another fish and she winded up finding a sting ray just chilling by some coral and rocks. It was small but really cute and she got very excited she called people over to come see it but it moved closer to the rocks. Then there was a sea turtle spotted!!! That was the most exciting news. It was not shy at all, and at one point it started swimming toward Scott. We got to pet it while filming it too. Then it swam away and we made our way around the reef some more. We made our way to the bird sanctuary island and got to go up on the beach. The water was so blue there it was amazing. We could only stay in the roped part of the beach because it is protected and the birds seemed to know that too! They stayed on their side of the rope as we stayed on ours. Then we made our way back to the boat and Scott found a white jelly fish, not the kind that can put you in the hospital for a few weeks though but we were wearing stinger suits anyway. On the way back to the boat we found NEMO!!!! There were a few instances where nemo was found too. There was a bunch of clown fish in an anemone!!!!! They were so adorable! Our way back we could see the burn beginning. There were some bright red people on our boat too. Morgan’s forehead got some color from being in the water. Scott burned the top of his head so he had to wear his bandanas after that. The sun is so strong here! After we docked we got off and said our thanks and the crew members liked Morgan’s Swedish Beauty hat too. We got to shower but then we had a really long session again with “pizza” and really good salad. Then we went walking and found some cute shops and Morgan got a brown sun hat and we got some gelato that was amazing! Scott’s mango one tasted like a legit mango and Morgan got Tim Tam gelato. Tim Tam is like a Kit Kat and an Oreo on crack because it is so much better! We have to bring some back to the US!!!!