Ah! On to another adventure! Off to Lady Elliot Island! It is on the southern most tip of the great barrier reef! Just a 4 hour drive north of Brisbane. Then, just like a movie star, you jump on a small charter plane and land on the island right next to the resort!
After that, though the feeling was immediately gone - when I saw my accommodations! Hey, they don't call it the "ECONO" lodge for nothing!!!
It is basically a permanent tent with concrete floor and 4 bunk beds. I, of course, slept on the upper bunk where each night, I would continuously hit my head on the rafters.
I have decided that the island name should be changed from "Lady Elliot" to the "Island of the Birds...AND their poop!" OH MY GOSH, THERE ARE BIRDS EVERYWHERE! and poop is just flying through the air! the whole place reeks of poop! Poop on the ground, poop on the chairs, poop in the trees! poop everywhere! poop! poop! poop!
And, at night, there is a bird called the "Mutton Bird" and it goes: WHOOOOOOOOOO! WHOOOOOOOO! all night, like a ghost! so, the first night, I go into my ECNO lodge tent and the first thing I see is this HUGE cockroach, the size of a small rat! I TOTALLY FREAK OUT! Luckily, they just happen to have a can of ROACH spray in the ECNO tent, (ummmmm, that should of been a BIG CLUE!!!!) so, I blasted him into oblivion!!! then, between the birds racket, the ghosts screaming and the cockroaches running around, I was scared to go to sleep. So, I said, that's it, I don't care if the sign says to please turn off the lights to save electricity since it is run on generator, I am sleeping with the lights on to keep the cockroaches from waging a war on me. but, after awhile, I thought, has anyone actually ever DIED from a cockroach? other than from fright, possibly? and I am quite proud to tell you that I rationally convinced myself to turn off the light, but, of course, proceed to wake up every hour, on the hour, from a roach induced panic attack!
The diving, however, was specatual! Especially the last dive, where I finally got the nerve up to drop some weight, and my bouncancy (spell?) was PERFECT! Ah, we were done there for OVER AN HOUR! Just me and the dive master! And we saw sharks, mana rays, all sorts of fish, turtles, it was fantastic!!! and we got do our safety stop right above the reef! and as a final good bye, we saw some silver tipped sharks! The whole experience was like swimming in someone's fabulous aquarium! Little, tiny colorful, tropical fish everywhere! ah, it was gorgeous! Lets go dive....we would ride a golf cart across the island, and a guy driving a tractor would lug all our gear. The boat would pull up and we would jump on and off you go! Here is a little picture movie to give you an idea:
Tutles
The turtle's were hatching their eggs and the little hatchlings that got left behind had been gathered up, and we got to let them out into the ocean at night!
Ah, it was so cool to see the little turtles running down the beach!
This little guy made it into the water!!
Everyone wanted a picture of the turtles! Even if they had to take it with their cell phone!
And yes, this is a real, live frog...
I met some really cool people (More about that shortly...), and the food was great, so, all and all, it was quite an adventure!
Time for take off!!!
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