Great Barrier Reef

This day had its ups and downs - literally. It takes about 90 minutes by boat to get out to the reef. Mom and I were fine for the first 30 minutes, and then we both got sea sick, along with about half of the passengers with us. It was incredibly windy, which made for really choppy water, and we were sailing against the current and the wind. But after vomiting four times, I felt better. This is the first time I've ever gotten sea sick. I took some ginger tablets, and felt close to human by the end of the day. The ride back was much calmer, and no vomiting resulted.

There is a pontoon moored near the reef, and it's much more stable, so Mom and I stayed on that for most of the day. I had signed up for a helicopter ride over the reef, which required another five-minute boat trip from the pontoon out to the helicopter pad, which induced one more round of vomiting. However, the helicopter ride was awesome - the reef is as long as the Great Wall of China and can easily be seen by air. We also went into the glass-bottom boat and the semi-sub and got some good underwater snaps - forgive the murkiness of the pictures.

The final down of the day was the vet calling at 12:30 am Australia time to tell me that my cat had stopped eating, and he asked permission to do some blood work. Then he called an hour later to tell me that her blood work was horrible and the cancer tumor was huge, and that they had tried to give her an IV catheter, and she had gone into cardiac arrest, and they couldn't revive her. I had had a feeling that she might pass while I was away, but I had wanted to be there with her, so I am feeling very guilty about that. I'll write a longer tribute post about her later, when I can do it without running for tissues.