Diving & Turtles

This morning, I woke up to get a massage. It was the first massage I got since the wedding was over. My muscles were sore from all the walking we did in Sydney. When she showed up, I thought for sure it was going to suck. She was a tiny Japanese girl. But she was one of the best massage therapists I’ve ever had! She honed in on all my knots on my back and asked why it was so tense. I told her I planned a wedding in 6 months, that’s why!

Afterwards, we ate breakfast and headed over to the Crocodile Park. We were going to try and make the 1030am crocodile feeding but missed it to eat breakfast instead. We headed over anyway since we had time before my dive. I’m glad we did. I saw a sign for Turtle Petting but it was at 1145am. We had 5 minutes but the max was 4 people and they already had people doing it. They looked at Rich in the wheelchair and was hesitant to do it. But we told them that he could walk and it was just faster to get him around in a wheelchair. Dustin, the zookeeper, made an exception and let us pet the turtles at noon. They’re huge! One of them kept on following Rich trying to taste him. He was 60 years old. The softest part was the back of his neck. Surprisingly enough, they could feel it when you rub their shell, so we petted it like we would pet Yogi.

Afterwards, I headed off to my dive. Rich tagged along on the boat to the reef. My last dive was Costa Rica so I was a little nervous, as usual. After my first few minutes down there, I felt at ease again. It wasn’t part of the outer reef so there weren’t a lot of varieties. It was pretty much the same fish we saw during the fish feeding. There was plenty of coral though. I was down there for about 40 minutes and took a few pictures with my dive camera.

Then we headed back to shore and it was Rich’s turn to get his massage. I just hung out at the pool, writing the honeymoon blogs.

The island is a popular day trip location for Cairns tourists. They arrive with the first ferry at 9. At that point, it’s like Disneyland. Then at 430pm, the island is like a Ghost Town. Right now, there are about 80 people in the whole island. Everything shuts down!

We went back to the room to grab the video camera and headed back out to the dock for the fish feeding and again off to the champagne sunset drinks. The workers said that today was the best day they’ve had all year long. We were really lucky to be here!

Dinner was again amazing. It was buffet night and we were brave enough to try smoked Kangaroo, but not brave enough to have Kangaroo steaks. We felt a little guilty about it but had to try it. Rich even ate crocodile…and guess what? It tastes like chicken. The last couple of pictures are of Rich eating the kangaroo and crocodile.

Tonight is our last night in Paradise. We’re pretty sad to leave tomorrow.

PICTURES: Green Island Day 2