on our second day at airlie beach we headed to the great barrier reef.
we took a 2 hour boat ride out to a pontoon called reef world. i have always wanted to see what it's like since jim and i did our first gbr experience in cairns.
the pontoon looked like this:
our boat pulled up next to it and we could go back and forth from the boat to the pontoon. once on the pontoon the options were endless:
- relax on a lounge chair and catch some rays
- go down the slide you can see coming off the very left side of the pontoon
- hop in the water to go snorkeling to see the marine life
- hop in the submarine to see the great barrier reef sub-style
- OR... see the great barrier reef from up above - heli-style... WHY NOT???
yup, that's right, we lived out our bachelor(ette) fantasies and took the helicopter ride to see the great barrier reef and more importantly the heart of the great barrier reef. it was one of the coolest things i've done.
"there's our ride!" - season 1-8 of the bachelorette
AMAZING!
to continue the amazingness of the trip, a&t decided to do their intro scuba dive and we did another dive. it never gets old seeing all the marine life and the beautiful shapes and colors of the fish. a&t saw an eel. we didn't see anything too exciting, but it doesn't mean it wasn't gorgeous. we all loved it.
when we were done with all of that, we took a few rides down the water slide and then adam and i went snorkeling since jim and tara were tuckered out.
for whatever reason, the underwater camera decided to lose battery, but we saw some pretty cool stuff. we even saw three nemo's!!
but nothing tops the unexpected trip home after all was said and done at reef world. we still had our 2 hour trip back to the harbor, but on our way we ran into a few friends. and when i say friends i mean whales!! they were literally like 10 feet from our boat and the captain stopped so we could all take photos. we probably saw around 20 whales. it was so unexpected and just another example of the a&t luck!
jim saying... THERE'S WHALES!
see those white spots under the water? those are whale bellies! they liked to rub their bellies on the bottom of the boat.
there's one coming out of the water, but you can still see others underneath the water.
it's kind of hard to see, but if you look close you see the whale's tail.
here were three coming up all together.
photos don't do it justice, but it was one of the most spectacular things i've ever seen.
and i can't end this without you saying hi to our rory look-a-like (for all the golfers out there).
it was a day for the books.