Shark Bait. Ho Ha Ha.

Fun fact: Finding Nemo is apparently really popular in Australia, according to Todd.

Okay, but seriouslyyy, I saw a shark today. Hence the shark title. A black tip reef shark. It was extremely adorable/a little bit terrifying. Today was “Take the American interns to the Great Barrier Reef for snorkeling adventures and nasty sunburns!” day. Every single hour, I put on practically every drop of sunscreen I had with me. What did I get in return for being overly cautious with the sunscreen? Bright red skin! Huzzah! They aren’t kidding when they say the sun here is a million times harsher than in the states. I would not have been burnt anywhere on my skin at home. Worth it though. The Great Barrier Reef is absolutely beautiful. We woke up bright and early to hop on a bus to get to a boat to get to the reef. The boat ride to the reef was two HOURS. It was fun though. The boat had those things in the front that look like trampolines, but are really hammocky type things. Of course, when you lie on those you also get extremely wet if the water is really choppy.. which it was. I was already 100% soaked about 20 minutes into the boat ride. Luckily it was pretty warm so it’s not like I was freezing. We went to two different snorkeling sites over a period of about five hours. We all wore silly stinger suits because it’s jelly season and there’s little guys that are smaller than your finger nail and basically invisible that can get you good if they can get at your skin. So basically there were like a hundred people in these ridiculous shocking blue similar to wetsuit things that had little mitten things on the ends to cover your hands and hoods to cover your neck and head and stuff. Everyone looked pretty dang stupid.

Fun fact: Red heads in Australia are often referred to as Blues. I was talking about the blue suits and I remembered this fun fact and didn’t want to forget it.. so yeah.

Back to the Reef stuff.. So yeah we all hopped off the boat into the nice warm Reef water and got to explore for like two hours in the first area. I saw lots of really neato fishies. There were lots of convict fish, which are black and white striped ones, and huuuge parrot fish, and lots of really brightly colored ones that I don’t know the names of, and butterfly fishes, and bat fishes, and big black ones, and little black ones, and pink ones... so on and so forth. Lots of fish, mmkay? The first site we went to didn’t have tons of really bright coral. It was a lot of dead coral and boring looking coral. So I mostly just looked at the fishes. The second area was waaaay better. It was off this little island that is a bird sanctuary, so there’s just a little roped off area where people can be. There were TONS of birds there. One of the girls got pooped on. Heh. It was a really shallow area, so the reef was way closer to the surface than at the first spot. It was so close that any where you were you had to be really careful or else you could kill some coral. This place had turtles and stuff, but I actually didn’t see any of them.. but I was the only one who saw multiple sting rays! They were so cool! they were like white ish with blue spots on them. It’s so fun watching them move around. I also saw these weird fish that were really long and skinny and flat with really long skinny flat noses. They looked like a strip of paper with eyeballs that could swim. They were super bizarre. The coral was a lot more exciting here too. Really big and bright and colorful. Oh, there were also these massive clams there. Seriously, HUGE. They were really cool. The sharks were at both sites. They were really awesome. Everything was just really awesome. I feel like every post I’ve done is pretty much me just saying, “This was awesome” “That was awesome” “They were awesome”. I clearly need a more expansive vocabulary. Anyway, we left and took the billion hour boat ride back to land. One of the crew members did a really exciting magic rope trick right before we got back. It was that one where they keep cutting it, but it’s still together and they will cut it into different sizes, but then they will be all the same size again. I think I should probably learn some magic tricks. I would probably be much cooler if I knew magic tricks.

On the mosquito bite front, I’ve lost count. However, I do have one on a finger now so that’s something that’s new and exciting.

I’m heading to Tasmania tomorrow finally!!! This whole vacationy thing has been nice and what not, but I’ve heard good things about Launceston and want to see it for myself! I’ve got a nice long day of traveling tomorrow, which sucks, but I can’t wait to stop living out of suitcases and unpack my things in my new home for two and a half months! Eek! I can’t believe I’ve only been gone for like three days.. It feels like it’s been so much longer. I also can’t wait to go to the ward in Launceston. I hope I actually find a way to get there. It will be interesting to meet some LDS Aussies in Lonnie (People keep referring to Launceston as Lonnie, I’ve realized that they shorten lots of things and put the y or ie sound at the end... barbie, pokie (poker machine), Brizzie (Brisbane).. I can’t think of any other ones off the top of my head right now..). It seems like all Australians are mostly just constantly drunk, soo I hope that’s not the case at church.. Hah.

Also, I feel a little bit sick. I think it might be the food I ate today.. I dunno. Or maybe it's the spicy Indian food that I ate last night. That food was sooooooo freaking spicy!