Port Douglas, Australia

Written by Charles October 31, 2013

We tried to go to Fraser Island (the largest sand island in the world), but things didn’t work out.  When we took a helicopter off the island, we saw whales!  There was a mother and a baby.  The mother put on a show for us by turning upside down, and then she flapped her tail a few times!  We could see the splashes from where we were 1,000 ft. high.  I thought it was really cool.  We arrived in Port Douglas two days early, and we did school and swam in a cool pool.  It even had a lazy river that went right in front of our hotel room!

After a couple days, we went scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef!  When we got out there and in the water, it was all colors.  There were reds, greens, blues, purples, oranges, yellows, and turquoise.  There were fish of every shape and color.  We saw lots of coral- every shape, size, and color imaginable.  It was really cool, although I sucked through my air like there was no tomorrow.  I wasn’t big enough to get a large tank, so I got a small one.  That also did not help with the air problem, so we had to head up early.  William did not have his scuba license, so he could not dive.  He went snorkeling instead and saw two sharks!  They were friendly sharks (sadly L).  On the second dive I saw a friendly shark (Happily J), and it was just mellow and swam away from us slowly. 

We did school the day after diving, but the next day was snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef.  Again we saw every color and shape known to human kind.  I’ll list the cool things we saw:  octopus, school of baby barracuda, a stingray, turtles, and a brain coral larger than me!  We did three swims and I froze my butt off all three times.  We are going to Kangaroo Island tomorrow.

Written by William October 31, 2013

We left Fraser Island last week by a Euro helicopter, and I got to sit up front. During the ride, we saw two whales! It was a mom and her calf; the mom was flapping her tail in the water to get the barnacles off. Then we took an airplane flight and a car ride to the hotel in Port Douglas, which is in the northeastern part of Australia. After that, everyone needed the rest of the day to chill and relax.

The next day we did a full day of school, so that we could have the following day off. The day after that, we went on a big private yacht out to the Great Barrier Reef. Charles and I played chess on the boat before we got to the dive site.  We went to two dive sights that day. I was the only one that went snorkeling because I don’t have my diving certification yet. My parents are so crazy they even got a private snorkeling guide for me; his name was Ali. I saw two reef sharks, one was 6 feet and the other was 4 feet. We saw lots of coral, and there were what looked like eyeballs on the coral; it was freaky! I also saw the world’s largest known clam; it looked like about 5 feet across. Everyone else went diving, and they saw eels, stingrays, suckerfish, a white-tip reef shark, barracuda, clams, and lots of pretty fish. We saw dolphins on the way back; they were jumping and riding the waves. Two went under our boat, and I was afraid the engines would cut them up.

Another day we went out snorkeling with a group on a tour, and Ali (my snorkeling guide) was the captain of the boat. We went to 3 sites; on the first stop, I came in because I thought the water was too cold. I still saw a lot of things in the water though. There was this one fish so big that it scared away Charles. I stayed on the boat during the second site and laid out on the deck in the sun to dry. Then my hair caught on fire, so I had to dunk it in the water…just kidding! That didn’t happen. The third stop was called SNO (south north Opal reef), and it was where they got the design plans for the reefs in Finding Nemo. I went in for around 15 minutes and saw all the cool coral. Then I got cold again, so I got out and went back to the boat.