October 1, 2009 - Cairns

Today was kind of a do nothing day. We slept in a bit and piddled around (translated, caught up on emails and blogged), then we went to lunch at Hungry Jack's. That was probably the most interesting part of the day. I ordered an Aussie hamburger. It came with a few unique extras: pickled beets, fried egg, and bacon. It tasted pretty good!

Then we went to a 24 hour medical center. Daniel and I needed to get Dive Medicals here in Australia in order to dive, even though we had gotten clearance back in the states. Daniel passed fine. I didn't because of a medication I am on. Apparently, it falls in a gray area of possibly causing problems when diving and the doctor was unwilling to sign off on me diving. But snorkeling was okayed.

We stopped by Woolworth's to get groceries, then got back to our apartment around 4:30. Daniel and Katrina went to the beach for a little while. Daniel said the water was a bit colder than he expected, the sand was coarser than we are used to and the shore drops off pretty quickly (meaning you don't have to walk 50 feet out to get wet above your waist. Then they came up to the pool and I went down to meet them. Daniel came up to the room and I stayed with Katrina for a bit.

Before going to bed, I took 2 motion sickness pills in an attempt to keep from getting sick during the boat ride out to the Great Barrier Reef. When at Myrtle Beach, one of the instructors tole me that I might want to try taking it the night before I go diving since taking it an hour before didn't help me. I went to sleep pretty quickly after that!