Day 2 7/8/07 - Australia

Hayman Island -> Knuckle Reef -> Hayman Island

Highlight

• Had a very enjoyable breakfast at Azure, sitting by the window looking right on the beach. It was a bit too cold to sit outside though. Only tried a small selection of food as we were going diving!
• Boarded Seaflight, run by Cruise Whitsundays. The oat was top class, and Hayman guests get special treatment (but we have to pay more than everyone else). Met Anne and Britney from USA, who were here for a birthday trip.
• Lots of activities on board, but we couldn’t actually fit everything in!
• Glass bottom boat – quite enjoyable, the marine biologist explained a lot of stuff, like what all the corals are called and what you were likely to see.
• Was looking forward to the "Subsea Adventure", a submersible. But it turned out to be not very exciting, we couldn’t see very much.
• Got suited up for diving, had a 1mm long suit with a 5mm short suit, but it was still freezing cold. We dived for 45 minutes but I couldn’t stand the cold. There were some pretty fish and coral, but much much less to see than The Similans and even our first Cairns trip, so in that sense was disappointing. The highlight was probably seeing (and touching ;p) Wally the giant wrasse again. I actually still had 90 bars of air left when we came up.
• We wanted to do a 2nd dive, but because of bad planning by them, we actually could not fit it in. Never mind, it was way too cold for me anyway, and it meant we could actually eat lunch.
• Lunch was not very exciting. We only got the leftovers of everyone else, and they actually packed up while we were trying to eat anyway.
• We only had about 15 minutes for lunch before we were whisked away for the next activity, which was a helicopter flight back to Hayman, visiting Heart Reef, Langford Island, Whitehaven Beach. The view was spectacular and was definitely worth the money ($349). We also saw a few whales on their migration from Antartica.
• Swam in the famous Hayman pool, but only the inside pool as nothing else was heated.
• Listened to the jazz and piano player in the Club lounge while Slokky ordered a girly mocktail.
• Watched them replace and wipe everything at turndown even though they only cleaned the room not too long ago.
• Had a quiet night in, looking at wedding photos, watch TV, read Harry Potter and of course the laptop. The free wireless access has to be the best feature of the resort.

Food

• Azure breakfast:
  • smoked salmon
  • assorted cold cuts
  • blueberry muffin
  • apple danish
  • rye bread
  • smoked salmon baked egg pot
  • hash brown
  • chicken sausage
  • chipolata sausage
  • croissant with strawberry jam
  • chocolate croissant
  • skim cappuccino
  • apple juice
  • pineapple juice
  • omelette with mushrooms, cheese and tomato
  • bacon
  • poached egg
  • brie with dried fruit
  • assorted fruit
• Lunch on Seaflight:
  • apple juice
  • bread roll
  • tortilla wrap
  • cold cuts
  • prawns
  • steamed mussels with tomato
  • crab stick salad
  • pasta salad
  • rice salad
  • potato salad
  • chicken
  • pineapple and melon
• tutti frutti mocktail ($12)
• English breakfast tea
• hot and spicy instant noodles ($1.50)
• chocolate seashell
• palmier