Can We Sleep Yet?

I woke up bright and early on Sunday morning and boy was that a stupid idea! To be fair I didn’t plan it that way I just woke up early and decided to get up but I should have tried a little harder to fall back to sleep.

The first flight of our adventure didn’t leave until 10:45pm and we were both hoping to get some sleep but things didn’t really pan out that way. Jesse’s parents took us out for dinner before dropping us off at the airport and since Jesse’s dad is always giving me a hard time about how I always order pasta at restaurants I decided to mix things up a bit and order a stir-fry. This was mistake number two of the day. I’m not sure if the food wasn’t cooked properly or if my stomach just couldn’t handle the spices in it but I felt like absolute garbage after I ate and ended up rushing to the bathroom more than once. Not ideal when you’re getting ready to sit on a plane for several hours.

Luckily by the time we actually boarded the plane my stomach had settled down a bit and I was able to continue my streak of never having to use an airplane bathroom but I still felt rough and wasn’t able to get much sleep. Poor Jesse didn’t get any sleep at all so when we were getting ready to board our second flight after a three hour layover and found out our flight would be delayed an hour he was less than impressed.

We both got a little bit of sleep once we were finally allowed to board the second flight but only in 10-20 minute bursts so needless to say we were both shattered when we arrived in Cairns since we had more or less been awake for over 24 hours. We were both starving as well since we slept through the food service during the flight.

Our first day in Cairns was pretty lackluster. We checked into our hostel and went for a stroll to find some lunch. We stumbled upon a café that had award winning (meat) pies and Jesse loves pies and I was still a little nervous about eating since my stomach was still feeling unsettled so I decided it was the perfect choice because he could have something hearty and I could just have a small pastry to see how my stomach would handle food.

We had a short nap in the afternoon and awoke to find that our scuba dive tour of the Great Barrier Reef we had booked for the following day had been cancelled. I was relieved and excited by this news. I don’t do well with boats and after feeling like garbage from dinner the night before the last thing I wanted to do was spend 4 hours travelling on a boat. I did however want to see the Great Barrier Reef since that was the whole reason we came to Cairns so I had a bit of a dilemma on my hands.

We talked to the receptionist at the hostel and he gave us a few recommendations and we ended up booking a tour to Green Island, where I could get off the boat and relax on dry land for a bit if I got sick during the journey, and we could snorkel from the beach as much or as little as we wanted. I knew we wouldn’t get the same experience as we would if we had opted to dive with another company but I was ok with that.

Once we had our plans for Tuesday sorted we headed into town for some dinner and then headed back to the hostel where we crashed fairly early since we were both running on fumes and had to wake up early in the morning.

Today I ended up waking up around 5am (over an hour before my alarm) and I wasn’t impressed. I was still exhausted but for some reason I couldn’t sleep. I let Jesse sleep until 6:30 then we both headed to breakfast. We filled up our tummies and started the walk to the Reef Fleet Terminal where we checked in for our adventure.

My stomach was still feeling a bit off when we got on the boat so I was feeling a bit nervous but I made it to Green Island without tossing my cookies, there were a few close calls though. The upside is feeling nauseous seemed to wake me up a bit so after being on solid ground for a few minutes I was ready to tackle the day.

We wandered along the boardwalk through the rainforest on the island and ate some lunch before heading to the beach. I had dipped my toes in early and thought it was freezing so I was surprised at how warm the water actually was when we dove in.

We snorkeled for a little over an hour and a few minutes after we started I was about to make a comment to Jesse about the coral not being very colourful when we happened upon some orange and purple sea anemones. I was hoping we would see some turtles but the universe decided to punish me for skipping out on a snorkel in Coral Bay where Jesse saw a turtle and I worked on my tan and didn’t put any turtles in my path. We saw heaps of different fish though, including Nemo, and I got to use my awesome new underwater camera that Jesse got me for Christmas.

I was able to sleep the whole boat ride back and now Jesse and I are just resting up at the hostel because we have another big day planned for tomorrow. I could tell you what we have planned but I think it will be more fun if I make you wait for tomorrow to find out.