What's Up, Chuck? Or "The sea was angry that day my friends"

I wasn't sure how to start this blog, there were so many options.

Be scared, very scared, if when booking an all day excursion that starts with the suggestion of anti- nausea medication. John took the suggestion seriously knowing my issues with motion sickness and ordered some Compazine for me to take before the cruise started.

We were going to Lady Musgrave Island which is located about 2 hours from Agnes Waters, the site of Captain Cook's landing in Queensland, but not his first in Australia. http://www.lmcruises.com.au/

We left Bundy about 5:30am for a 7:30am departure from Agnes Water. I drove, yes, I'm driving regularly now, on the correct side of the road, the 2 hours. John had just finished a spat of shifts and was spent, so I drove while he slept. It was a very narrow 2 lane road, my friend Debbie's favorite, and there is NO shoulder here. The ride was a little harrowing in that I met buses and long tractor trailers, double trailers, all heading for me at 100 km/ hour. Gulp.

We made it in plenty of time for the departure, swallowed our meds and boarded the ship for the day.
We knew it was at least a 75 minute ride, that's what the brochure said, but the wind was really blowing, so they announced it might take up to 90 minutes. We left the dock by way of what we call a patio boat, to get to the big boat, all because it was low tide and the big boat was too deep for the depth. We got on and headed to the top as fresh air is my best place for the trip with my motion sickness. We got settled and took off. The captain then announced that everyone at the stern of the boat (back for you land lubbers) needed to come to the front of the boat so the propellers wouldn't hit the sand bar that we we're passing over.  OK, that's how slim the margin is here. Made it over the shallow inlet and we were off to sea. It was windy, there were white caps off in the distance.....
                                                                               

The Lady Musgrave

Back to the fresh air and our seats, and the open sea. Lots of fresh air, and wind, and waves, and waves, and waves, and splash. We were soaked in 5 minutes. Everyone was laughing and yucking it up, so what if we were wet, it was a warm spray, and the sun was out, we had sunscreen on, the day was warm, it wasn't that long a trip........until it was. The crew came out to explain what to do in the case of motion sickness, they had these handy little gadgets which John has so nicely offered to demonstrate. They are called

SPEW BAGS.

These little gems were in great demand 20 minutes into the trip. We were still laughing as the waves hit the boat and drenching us, there would be no drying out on this trip out. We then heard the unmistakable noise of unbridled vomiting. You know the noise that comes from your toes, and there's no way to muffle it. Horrible for the person getting sick and not much better for the people around them. The chorus of spewing started with a woman about our age with her husband and kids (the guy had a Harley Davidson 95th Anniversary T shirt on), so it was easy to identify them, then it moved to  all sections of the boat. It was a barf-fest! We were barely 30 minutes out and it became obvious that the 20-25mph winds were going to slow us up, a lot. (We found out later in the day that 25-30mph winds would have cancelled the trip, which had happened the day before.)


I'm not going to report all the afflicted but there were a couple of really injured folk who you just felt for, they were so miserable. It seemed that the trip over wouldn't end, and it did take over 2 hours in the chop to arrive at Lady Musgrave Island. As we approached the reef, this is the southern most end of the Great Barrier Reef, the waves and wind calmed a bit and we readied for departure. The crew announced lunch would be served within the hour and I heard a collective groan from the group leaving. We needed to get organized for snorkeling and scuba diving and time was precious as we had such a long enjoyable trip over.

The guy who was getting our masks, snorkel and fins was a character. We wondered if someone had picked him up from a garden as he looked just like a garden gnome.

His accent was so strong that even the Australian passengers couldn't understand him. Our little gnome was a little more angry than this jolly sort. He shouted at us to pick up our fins and masks, and barked our sizes at us like "You're a 39 and oh so fine" or "You're 40 and very naughty",  over and over he used the same shtick. He was also quite abrasive and shouting not to drip on the seats (um, excuse me, hadn't we just had a 2 hour soaking, courtesy of this ship????).

John and I had snorkeled a few times together, in Hawaii, in Costa Rica, Greece, and in Australia. I like to have him swim with me as I get disoriented looking down and need him to re-orient. First off, the water is incredible, the color in one place is the most sapphire blue I've ever seen then turquoise, then clear silver. Amazing. We figured the coral under the water's surface was the reason, or no coral under the surface were the blues and greens. The grey was where the coral was closest to the surface.
The fish were everywhere and the most colorful in the world. That little "Finding Nemo" fish is called a clown fish and even though they are very shy, I saw a few.

But the real treat was swimming with the sea turtles. They were all over this spot and you could just calmly swim above them. Their colors and shell patterns were beautiful, you just couldn't swim away.

In full "flight"

A disclosure here, I don't take all the pictures I use in this entry, or in the blog. When I can find an image online that captures what I've done or seen, I use it. Most times these photos are better than the ones I've taken or could have taken. 

They have safety measures in place while we were in the water, if you heard a whistle, you needed to look back toward the ship to see what the danger is. As we drifted and swam with the turtles, not knowing how fast the drift was or how far we had floated away, I did hear the whistle. I looked up and saw John, but no other snorkelers, that panicked me a bit, and motioned to John we should head back. The wind was still blowing and the waves were quite difficult to navigate. I used to be a strong swimmer but this was hard swimming. Also, I chose to wear a life jacket whilst snorkeling, that just added to the drag. I wasn't sure why the whistle was blown from the boat, but my fear was the obvious......dun, dun, dun, dun

Rut-row

We made it back to the boat, no idea why we were called back but it was OK, I was tired and lunch was being served. 

We had another chance to see the underwater world with a glass bottom boat that we took to the Island itself. They had a naturalist take us in small groups to the Island and through the boat bottom we saw lots of turtles and coral, sea cucumbers, eels, and sting rays. We took a lovely walk on the Island to see it's wonderful wildlife. Marcus (our guide) loved it here, and spends time volunteering to care for it in the off season. There is a campsite where you can spend the night, or many nights. We saw up to 50 tracks where the turtles had nested just the night before, this is a big nesting ground for the Loggerheads and Green Turtles.

We had an hour of guided walking which was really informative and enjoyable. 

We got back to the boat in time for "tea" and then for the ride home. I was swallowing another

pill when I suggested we offer some meds to the 2 people we had the worst of it going over. They both accepted our offer and we were off. We got this picture of the gentlegnome of whom I spoke and discovered he was the OWNER of the boat, which makes sense, as no one else would have hired him.

The ride back was WITH the wind and much better. It was a rolling ride instead of a trip trying to rip through 15 foot waves. I fell asleep as John talked to a nice family from Canada, my med had kicked in. 

We departed the ship and headed for the night at The Pavillions 1770. John had booked us in a beautiful complex, and once we had gotten our bags in the room, he headed to the bottle shop for refreshments, good on him!

We had a nice dinner next door from the complex and headed to bed, it had been a LONG day.

More on Agnes Waters and 1770 soon.