Happy Birthday to Us!

How do you wrap a blender or cologne and call it a birthday present these days??

So, we took a sailing trip for our birthdays! I would like to tell you that after three days and three nights on a two-masted sailing ship that I'm hooked on sailing. Since I didn't sail at all I feel I should say that I'm hooked on sitting on a sailing ship while it sails through the ocean! That is accurate.

If you can call living with 36 strangers in very tight quarters aboard a diving/snorkel yacht a second honeymoon, then that's what it was! We met lovely people from Canada, France, India, and the UK. We were the only Americans and the only Aussies were the crew. The food was substantial, the weather was perfect, the sleeping quarters were romantically small, and the nightlife consisted of quiet card games and moon gazing from the deck. (see what happens when you remove Aussies from the picture?!!)

We started out from Airlie Beach and sailed out to the Whitsunday islands. We saw a huge goanna on White Haven Beach, our first stop. It's famous for it's perfect white sand. So true. From there we went further out to the Great Barrier Reef and snorkeled for the day (read no land in sight . . .). We found Nemo, Crush, all their friends, and the beautiful corals. One day the crew fed the fish as we snorkeled and suddenly we were surrounded by many many fish all darting around inbetween us! It's hard to laugh and squeal through a snorkel! Pat and I got some bread and fed them from our hands, too. So amazing.

We watched the sun rise in the morning and saw the whales playing in the distance. Truly playing. They breeched time and time again, waved their fins, lolled and rolled in the water.

We celebrated with Baskin Robbins ice cream back on land for our birthday treat!