Turtles and sharks and clams, oh my!!!

We had another "best day ever" today at the Great Barrier Reef. We are all fully elated and exhausted.

We arranged for a babysitter that came highly recommened, and sure enough, Mary Poppins showed up. Actually, her name was Fay, but she was supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! She came equipped with baby blankets, a baby swing, jewelry making kits, play-doh, connect four, and more. Our kids were nearly fighting over her;) She was so friendly and so good with Liam and Elle, she was the ideal companion to our trip. Thanks to Fay, we all were able to enjoy our trip.

Our boat left early in the morning and we visited three sites over the course of the day. The crew was amazing at assisting and educating us, they were as present or as invisible in the water as we wanted them to be. The weather was perfect, sunny, calm and hot.

Elle joined us at every site, and the sight of seeing her dive deeper than is even possible for me will never leave my memory. We all saw some incredible sights today. Some highlights though had to be swimming with sea turtles, sharks, and spotting the giant clams at work.

Yes, we swam with sharks. At the second site, immediately after entering the water I spotted a shark (black tips) directly below me. Then, a few more showed up. They didn't seem the least interested in us, until later, once we are all on board and people started to feed them. We saw some good action then. The sea turtles were just beautiful and so peaceful, and it's tragic what is happening to them due to toxic run-off (they are being born with major deformities) and adrift plastic. (they mistake plastic for some of their favorite food, jellyfish) These turtles are a treasure that need protected. The giant clams were gorgeous and just so cool! They would open slowly and then snap tightly closed as fish approaced.

We saw the 1000's of the most spectacular brightly colored tropical fish, gorgeous shells, and enormous squid, tuna, snapper, grouper and more.

Elle was screaming about the jellyfish she saw, but when we came over to inspect we were amused to see that it was actually the bubbles coming up from the scuba divers. They looked just like jellyfish! We did see one jellyfish, and certainly there were more, but we were all protected as we were required to wear rash suits to protect us.

What an experience, every part of this trip has been unbelievable, but this day was truly amazing.