It was so nice to be going back to the Great Barrier Reef today, we got up early and checked out at 7:15am and paid to keep our large backpacks in Gilligan's storage lockers. I moaned on the way down to the harbour because I had lost all of my bobby pins which meant my hair was going to get tangled up in my snorkel every time I dived. None of the shops were open yet so it didn't look like I could get any, then we came across a market being set up! I found a stool selling hair clips with flowers on them. They were $5 each so naturally Chris wasn't happy about me buying one, but I needed it I said lol. 

We arrived at the harbour and found the Reef Experiance, we went to get on but were told we weren't on the manifest! A crew member blamed the office and said they're always causing problems, he gave them a call and confirmed we were due to go out and it turned out they had forgotten to update it. So on the boat and straight for a cup of tea! We had our bacon and egg rolls and listened to a briefing downstairs. We decided to sit inside this time to watch a reef presentation given by a marine biologist. It was quite interesting and we learnt a few things from it. The marine biologist only looked about eighteen years old! He offered to answer any questions at the end of the presentation so I asked him how long do the sea cucumbers live for? He said he didn't care about cucumbers so didn't know. Talk about picky! 

Chris recognised Murray the original chef was on board. We went and said hello and asked if he was going back on the Reef Encounter. He said yes because the crew and guests were complaining about Phillips food! Looks like he won't be keeping the job then. We were pleased Murray was going back on because now we will get free amazing food!

We transferred back to the Reef Encounter just before 10am and put our stuff back into our room 106, no one had been in there since we left it. Nina was back in charge which was cool because we got on well with her. Some of the hosties from before were still on board too so it was nice to see them again. We got straight to work, we showed new guests to their rooms and carried their bags for them, then Nina asked us to go around and do a bit of cleaning. The sea was quite choppy today, I started to feel a bit sea sick in one of the cabins and the smell of polish wasn't helping. I finished in the room then took a quick break in our own room.

Lunch time came round and we were looking forward to a decent meal, unfortunately Phillip was still cooking so it wasn't that great. Afterwards we helped clean up and put away the dishes, that's when Chris pointed out the bags of chocolate buttons in the cupboard, there were hardly any left! Those greedy hosties that took over from us had almost eaten them all! Ah well that didn't stop us from taking a few anyway lol. 

There were only four guests staying for the night so we thought we would get a really easy afternoon but no, Nina found us other jobs to do. Chris helped wash the decks down outside the boat, while I got stuck hoovering the inside! This time there was no Henry because he had been broken, instead I had to wear a jet pack! I did not look cool, I felt like I was about to fly off into space with this thing! I have to admit though, despite banging into the corridor walls every time the boat rocked, it was a lot easier to use than Henry was. 

All work was finished for now so Nina let us all go on our break an hour early, then we had our dive at 3:30pm at Norman Reef. Chris really enjoyed it because there were loads of tight swim throughs. He managed to get through most of them but there was one really tight one! He said at one point he thought he was going to have to take off his equipment so he could make it through! He ended up coming out with a couple of scratches. I couldn't be bothered to try any of them so I watched. Plus they were quite dark so I wasn't sure if I would panic in them, even Matt, one of the hosties that came with us, wouldn't try the really small ones! 

On our way around the dive site I spotted a two meter white tip reef shark, Chris and Matt hadn't seen it so I had to literally shout Chris's name at the top of my voice through my regulator so he could hear me and for once it actually worked! Then I spotted Frank, a large napoleon wrasse fish who everybody knows about, he's the one who apparently lets you touch him but he wasn't interested today. Then I spotted a turtle, I tried to feed it some sea weed but it wasn't interested! He just kept eating what he wanted from the rocks and ignored us. 

I think it was my day for finding things, on our way back I found a t shirt on the sea floor next to the boat, I brought it up with me and it turned out it belonged to one of the dive crew! He said he didn't even know it was missing so it must of flown off the deck. Chris said he had problems with his BCD under water, it kept deflating. He said the deflator button was stuck so had to keep unjamming it, but as soon as he used it, it jammed open again! That meant his air went down faster than normal. 

As we dried off one of the hosties told us no one was allowed to use the hot tub any more unless you were a paying guest, crap! We loved that hot tub! So we just chilled out until 5:30pm. 

We set up for dinner and served the four guests, it was the easiest evening ever! This time Murray was back in the kitchen, he cooked barramundi, chips and salad and it was beautiful! We were so glad Murray was back. Poor Phillip was told it wasn't his cooking, it was that Murray had returned so they didn't need him any more! 

After dinner we cleaned up and went for our night dive. We saw a big parrot fish sleeping in it's mucus bubble which was really cool, we didn't know they did that! There were loads of giant lobsters all over the rocks again, a giant red cod and giant travelli's were hunting in our torch light like before. They were so stupid, they kept bumping into us. Then Chris spotted a bearded scorpion fish but best of all was a weird dwarf like lobster that Chris found. It was flat, brown and had two tiny eyes on the top of it's shell, it looked very alien! Chris poked it a few times then Matt tried to pick it up, it went mental and made us all jump! It reminded me of one of the aliens that attach to your face and lay an egg inside just like in the film Alien!!! None of us had seen one before so we wanted to know what it was. On our way back Chris's torch went out a few times, he said it was really weird, like he had closed his eyes for a few seconds. He gave it a few hits which made it work again but just for safety he carried a glow stick in his hand. 

Later that evening after enjoying Murray's yummy dessert we cleaned up then chilled out and watched a bit of tv. We looked in some books trying to find out what that alien creature was but we didn't find it. We described it to some of the dive crew and they kept saying it was called a bug but we had nothing to compare it too. 

It was a great day and really easy! We have to leave tomorrow lunch time which means it's going to be an easy morning and our last dive on the Great Barrier Reef.