December 29, 2008.

Have not written since we arrived in Mackay. Finally meet my cousins that I have been emailing for several years. We arrived in the 23 of December and spent Christmas at Peter and Val’s home and on the 27th we went over to Marnie and Stuart’s. It is from here that we went out to the Great Barrier Reef. We boarded the tour boat at 8:00am and then went 95 miles out to Knuckle reef to tie up at a stationary pontoon and spent 4 hours snorkeling, diving and just having fun in the water. Donna did two dives while I took a 20 minute helicopter ride out over the reef, which I followed with snorkeling, a ride in the glass bottomed boat and then a ride in a semisubmersible vessel. Fabulous day Today the 29 of December we went out fishing in the Whitsunday Islands. Caught my first fish, had several others on but lost them. Donna also caught a fish and so did the others. Another great day. This evening we all went out for dinner at a pub. Great seafood.
December 30, 2008.
We have gone back to Peter and Val’s after spending the last three day at Marine’s in Proserpine. We had some of the fish that we caught for lunch and then when we go home we had it for supper also. Sure is good fish. Cannot remember the names of the fish but they are very good eating. Tomorrow we go to the rain forest and will do some zip line flying.
Will add some photos of the reef, Christmas, the gang, and fishing.