Snorkelling excursion

Hi all,

This morning we headed to the water sports centre at 8.45am for our snorkelling excursion. From what I could tell from our guide's strong accent, we went to a reef called Lola's Garden. There were 18 of us on the trip, and we got a speed boat for about half an hour to the reef.

I wasn't expecting much as, let's be honest, us Australians have the Great Barrier Reef in our backyards. As a result, coral reefs around the world never seem to be as impressive. However, the coral was pretty colourful and we saw lots of beautiful fish. Maybe even more than we saw on the coral in 2021 at the Great Barrier Reef. We also saw a HUGE manta ray. I would say it was the third best place I have snorkelled, behind the Great Barrier Reef and the reef on Turtle Island in Borneo. However, a bit of a let down on this excursion was that they treated us like children who didn't know how to swim. We had to follow a guide the whole time, we had to wear a life jacket (which kept floating over our heads and made it harder to swim, ironically!) and they asked us if we were OK every few minutes. Considering we had signed a waiver at the water sports centre, they still seemed very concerned about something happening to us. Nevertheless, we enjoyed exploring what lay below the beautiful turquoise surface, and we enjoyed the boat trip there and back.

That was our last planned activity here at Riu Atoll. We found ourselves afterwards feeling a bit unsure of what else to do today. We think our nine days here will be about perfect - any more and I think we would start to go a bit stir crazy. We spent the remainder of the afternoon in the pool and ocean, and then Rob went to the gym while I did some life admin on my laptop. We saw a school of huge fish just off our deck. Tonight we are heading to a quiz night they are running.

Funny story to help me remember one day - we keep seeing two young guys and an older guy walking around. Rob overheard them yesterday telling the scuba instructor in the pool that they are two friends travelling with one of their Dads. So we keep chuckling to ourselves nicknaming them Mikey and Adam when we see them in the distance, imagining Adam, his friend Mikey, and my Dad travelling here together to this romantic destination!!

Love to all
Claire
Xoxox