We spent the vast majority of the day flying on three flights-leaving the hostel at 4:45 AM after a night of people knocking on the doors of the hostel, keeping us awake. The flights were uneventful and we finally got to Proserpine, "Gateway to the Whitsundays," in the early afternoon. It was hot and sunny as soon as we got out of the plane, which was a lovely welcome.

We rode a bus that had an advertisement video for "FantaSea" travel-a kind of Disney World of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). It was quite ridiculous and cheesy, to say the least. Fortunately the bus took us straight to our hostel where we relaxed, had a nice dinner, got ready for our scuba and snorkeling trips, and bought food and supplies. Pat, Jason and I played some poker for pasta (later to be converted into grams of chocolate) and despite a series of bad hands I ended up the winner. After our laundry came out of the dryer we went to bed, ready for new adventures.