Sea Kayaking!!!

Our alarms went off at 8AM, but we didn't want to get up, so we laid in bed talking about the trip and things to come for another thirty minutes before we went to get breakfast. The hostel provides a free breakfast consisting of two different, but hearty cereals, coffee or tea, and milk. We ate and Matt checked his e-mail and such. We did dishes and headed back up to pack for our trip. With just ten minutes before the bus arrived, we threw together a bag and rushed to the curb to wait. We nearly forgot to put the sunscreen on so we did that while waiting.

The tour guide came to the door to grab us, he had parked in the front since the drive to the entrance is not trailer friendly. We were greeted by two other couples in the van as well as a second guide. We made our way from the city and picked up six more guests before arriving at the launching platform. Aussies don't have to reverse very often, roundabouts make that a rare occurrence for most drivers; so needless to say, it was fun to watch him try to back in a straight line with plenty of room!

We put our kayaks on the beach and got a safety briefing before we launched. Some highlights to the briefing include: Watch for stingers (not sting rays, but box and jikungie jelly fish, both of which can be fatal in a matter of minutes if left untreated), whirl pools, and strong currents that would land you in Hong Kong if left untreated.

We then launched into the waters at low tide, taking note of the water level because it would change about 10m during our 2hr excursion. The 2 pictures above show the difference in water level. The first was taken at 9:30am and the second at 11:30am of the exact same location.

Along the trip, we were on the lookout for sea turtles, but none were seen within 100m of our vessels so we didn't really see anything. We took a break near a large rock on the beach where we found hundreds of hermit crabs. The crabs were placed in the center of the circle and the first to exit the circle won. Kaylin picked an excellent crab, making it to the edge of the circle first, but cowering away to its shell before crossing; she got second place! Matt's, however, didn't even make it 10cm from the start...his name became Speedy. We then had refreshments, Ritz crackers, spread, and a concentrated juice drink called cordial. The guides packed up the snacks and we launched again into a canopy of mangrove trees. By this time in the trip, the water had risen about 8m so we were now at the top of the vegetation! On the return, we got to see fins breech the water's surface when our guide said “I hope those are dolphins!” They were dolphins pop, no worries mate! We passed under a jetty (bridge over the water) and we could have probably touched the road with our paddles, the water had risen that much! Hugging the edge of the beach, we navigated some swift currents and made it passed with no guests lost at sea. We paused and watched some Aboriginal kids fly off of a cliff into the water, probably the height of a 7.5m platform. We continued to the launching platform passing by a rock formation that previously was not covered by water. Our guide navigated his boat through a narrow window opening in the rock (that used to be about 8m above the water at the beginning of our voyage) and he nearly made it through until he bottomed out. Using the waves, he eventually made it through. We got back to the van and brought our boats to shore. Most of our pictures of this trip were on our 35mm underwater camera so we will not have them posted until Matt makes it back to the states. We paid for our trip and the guide brought us back to the hostel. (We couldn't believe that we didn't pay or put a deposit down for the trip until it was over! Definitely not how it's done in the states!)

We hopped into the pool to cool off since we were not allowed to safely swim in the ocean and we changed for lunch. That's when we saw exactly how poorly we applied our sunscreen. Both of us have cherry red thighs and shoulders; darn that reflecting water! Since we had nothing else planned, we decided to go to the larger of the shopping centers about 1.2Km away from the hostel. It was later noted, that the heat was 32C, with a heat index of 41C, that's over 110F with 70% humidity! The journey here was for Aloe, but also a time kill in the air conditioning. We were in sight of the center when we saw how empty the lot looked. Remembering what our mate James had said the day previous, “Get what you need today, tomorrow's Good Friday so all the shops will be closed,” we were met a the door with a padlock. There was a BP mini-mart in the lot so we stopped in for an ice cream and a bottle of water. “Matt, we don't have to live here anymore” Kaylin said on our walk home.

We came back to out room to watch The Office and cool off in the AC. Kaylin had a hankering for some chocolate but with all the shops closed, our only option was the McDonalds about 0.5Km from the hostel. Watch for the McCafe inside McDonalds to really look like a coffee house, they had cheesecake, tortes, and “American Style Brownies.” We got two tiny (only size) McFlurries and a large (medium) coke for Matt. The internet is still awful, two episodes of The Office (an hour of total show) took 2 hours to stream so we are low on internet time at the moment. Now we are getting ready to make spaghetti for dinner and enjoy a live DJ for the rest of the night.

From Broome, Australia,

Love Matt n' Kaylin!

P.S. Any of you that have been to a robotics competition, you'll know what I am talking about: the music selection here is awful! I have heard the Poker Face song 5 times today...they are a few months behind on the new music so it's the popular song here! Oh well, the night goes on.

Still no pictures bc the internet is too slow to upload them and we have to pay by time. We will let you know when we get them up. Also , we took the sea kayaking pictures with a waterproof disposable camera. We will have to get those developed before we can scan and upload them onto the blog.