I have to admit I was kinda looking forward to leaving the boat today, being up at 5:30am each morning isn't much fun so it will be nice to have a lay in tomorrow. 

This mornings dive was fun though, we saw another turtle swimming up for air, big cod, barracuda, and at least twenty large buffalo parrot fish! Nina saw them too, she later described them as beautiful but the only thing beautiful about them was their s***. We thought they were ugly looking things! They have a massive hump on their head and a beak which they use for biting chunks of coral off with. They destroy so much of the reef being in a large number like that, which means they also s*** a lot of white sand which creates our pristine beaches. 

It was a gorgeous sunny day today and the wind from the last few days was beginning to drop, it made a big difference when getting out of the wetsuits. After drying off and getting ready for work we put breakfast out then sat down to eat. We were leaving the boat after lunch so weren't planning on working too hard. As usual we helped clear up in the kitchen then Shannon asked us to clean our room and change the beds for the next hosties to arrive. It didn't take long to do so Chris grabbed two cups of tea and we took our time. 

When we thought we had been long enough we went back upstairs. I saw Shannon at the bar, she was day dreaming across the dinning room looking out through the windows. Suddenly she started flapping her arms about and then she let out a huge scream "WHALES"! I ran to the window to check and could see them too so I went to find Chris. I told him to put down his tea and run to the deck! Shannon was still flapping and screaming "whales" she was soooo excited! Eventually she calmed down, everyone on board was standing out on the decks watching as more and more whales swam by. We counted at least ten of them but we believe there were more before. They were about sixty meters away from the boat so it was hard to tell what kind they were, as soon as they were gone Shannon raced back in and grabbed a book from the shelves. They looked about four meters long and very similar to dolphins. There were a couple of debates until finally someone found the type of whale that they were, Pilot whales. They did look like dolphins just a lot fatter though. We were really pleased that we had seen dolphins yesterday and our first sighting of whales today!

New guests arrived just before lunch time, we had already laid the tables and helped out in the kitchen. Two of the guests from last night were now taking over as hosties so when Shannon asked me to hoover (I hate Henry) of course I handed it over to one of them to do lol. Just as we thought we could stop there was another food delivery. There wasn't as much today so Chris and the boys helped while the rest of us walked around with a duster in our hands until it was time to serve lunch.

As soon as we had finished eating we were guests again, we changed out of our blue t shirts and chilled out on the sofas until it was boarding time. Before we went we said good bye to each member of staff (except one or two of the stuck up dive crew who thought they were too good for anyone) and the other hosties. We also showed the new hosties a stash of chocolate buttons in the kitchen cupboard. They had become our naughty habbit, each time one of us were standing in the cupboard doorway putting dishes away we would quickly eat a few. There were four big bagfuls so the odd few here and there were never missed. 

Shannon called us to board the boat, we said good bye one last time and everyone waved us off. Chris was giggling and had a huge grin on his face, I asked what's up and he said "We got away without paying for the t shirts so we just saved $30" Result!!

On our way back to Cairns on the Reef Experiance we stopped at a snorkelling location called Breaking Patches Reef and it was obvious why it had that name. The patches of reef in the sea looked like giant oil spills except they were coloured green and blues. There was a small sand island close by which the turtles breed on making the reef here an excellent spot for seeing turtles. The turtles are so used to people swimming here that they usually don't mind you swimming along with them! Most of the guests wore wetsuits but me and Chris dived straight in without one. It may have been an Australian winter day but for us 30 degrees is just lovely and the sea temperature was 25 degrees! 

We swam straight out and came across a turtle within minutes. It was a large one and it wasn't fazed by us being there at all. We followed him across the shallow reef for ages, we could sit right next to him and he just didn't care, Chris stroked him for a bit but we bloody forgot to bring the camera!! When we got to the other side of the reef, I heard whistling noises. I ignored it and we carried on. Then suddenly a small rescue boat came over and told us to swim back, we had gone too far! Lol oops! On our way back over we saw another three turtles! I can't believe Chris didn't bring the camera!  

After thirty five minutes we decided to get out and dry off. We got moaned at for swimming too far again so didn't bother getting back in. Instead we went inside for wine and cheese crackers and of course Chris had another cup of tea! His insides must be stained the colour of a tea bag by now! 

We got back to the harbour at 4:30pm. This time we didn't want to be too far from the city centre so we walked around looking for a hostel until we came across Gilligan's. A few people recommended it to us so we went and had a look. It was a huge hostel, it had it's own nightclub and swimming pool area at the back. We didn't want to go anywhere else so we booked in for two nights. When Chris tried to pay on his card the payment wouldn't go through, he tried several times then we used my card which worked fine. I asked the receptionist to put us in a quiet dorm away from the nightclub if possible. He said he had already done that for us. 

We found our dorm which was clean and spacious enough and it had a large balcony too. We got changed then went out to find out what was wrong with Chris's card, it turned out the money didn't transfer in the other day! Chris was pissed! We went straight on the internet and luckily Chris's mum had emailed him to say that the bank had sent him a letter stating they were freezing his account, thinking the transfer was fraud!!! Even though Chris spoke to them the same day and transferred money into the account over the phone! To make it worse they didn't even emailed Chris stating that his account was frozen! He rang them and got them to pay for the phone call, it was US$50 for the first 5 minutes!! It took about 15minutes to sort it out and get his account unblocked. He wanted to transfer money after that but they hung up on him in the end!! He's going to close the account when we get home, Natwest are totally s***! 

Once everything was sorted we went back to Gilligan's for our free meal at 7:30pm, it was crap and made Phillips cooking seem like five star! We queued for half hour just for a small bowl of stodgy crap which they called spaghetti bolognaise. Of course we were still hungry after so we had a can of soup each when we got back to our room. We were both shattered after the four days on the boat so we went to bed at 9pm! I heard one of the guys from the room come in later that evening, he wasn't making much effort to be quiet, I heard him say he couldn't believe we were in bed by ten! I felt like saying to him "You try working on a boat for four days and see how you feel! Now shut the hell up piss head!" but I didn't lol. He eventually left and passed out in his bed later that night.