The Last Few Days of Orientation...

As of now I am in Brisbane, the city I will be living in for the next five months. I have moved into my accomidations, which are VERY nice (I have my own room and bathroom!) My roomies and I live in this area called Southbank, which is filled with cool shops and restaurants. They also have farmers and craft markets on the weekends, which I am really excited for.

So anyways, the last day of orientation was spent on the Great Barrier Reef.
We sailed on our catamaran to our first dive spot, which was in the open ocean (a little scary at first). Everyone opted to wear these really awesome stinger suits, that just looked TERRIFIC! haha.
So, my friends and I snorkeled around the coral. It was so amazing to see everything up close, not just reading about it in books or watching documentaries on TV! LOVE LOVE LOOOOVE! I saw huge giant clams, a bunch of different fish, and various types of coral.

After our first dive, we ate lunch on the boat and sailed off to our second location. This time we went to a sand island. The water there was so blue and you could see the patches of coral, unlike the other dive site. There were also these huge fish, oh my god bigger than me that would swim by the boat (don't worry they were friendly). So we all dived in and immediately saw so many fish! There were a lot of parrot fish, zebra looking fish and giant clams. We also saw a big blue star fish laying on a rock and A SEA TURTLE!!!!!!! I swam with it for a while and it was soooo amazing! They are so graceful in the water, unlike me who just flops around :)

The reef was amazing, however there was one down side...it's jelly season. In the second site we didnt have to worry about it becuase the jellies there were not stingers...in fact i held one! But the first site was FILLED with jellies, who stung and it was scary. However, I dont think anyone actually got stung by a jelly becuase apparently you would rather be on fire than be stung by a little jelly fish. There were also these little creatures, sea lice, that would nip and bite you which hurt for like 5 minutes but then subsided.

All in all, the reef was the most amazing thing I have done since I have been here and hope to take a weekend trip back and snorkel or learn to dive!



From the other side of the world,
Melissa


ps. I tried vegimite...it was gross.