Hmm, blogging about something ten days after it happened may not be the best way to shake off those annoying accusations of tardiness.

Anyway! Cast your minds back, if you will, to Thursday the 28th of January. A London conference thrashed out the question of Afghanistan's future, David Cameron did some more back-pedalling on Section 28, and a chihuahua named Tinkerbell adopted three newborn kittens. Ah, those were the days. Meanwhile Mike and I set off for the outer Great Barrier Reef aboard the fair ship SilverSonic. There are a handful of operators offering trips out to the reef from Port Douglas, all of which sound much of a muchness - we chose based on who made the fewest punctuation errors in their leaflet. (Well, I say "we" - no prizes for guessing which of us felt there was bound to be a direct correlation between accurate comma usage and water sports safety record.) In a fit of overweening confidence I suggested that as well as snorkelling around the reef we also sign ourselves up for a scuba diving session - Mike had actually been diving once before, in a confined space filled with sharks, no less, whereas the most I'd ever done was hold my breath in the bath, and even then not for very long. Slightly worryingly, the first thing we were asked to do after stepping on board was to sign away all rights to litigation or compensation in the event of our watery deaths, after which we were shown a cheery video explaining the myriad ways in which we could kill or maim ourselves. By the time our instructor called our group of four over to get kitted out I was making silent whimpering sounds to myself and wondering whether I'd ever got round to signing the organ donor register.

My impending anxiety attack was all for nothing though - scuba diving was, somewhat improbably, a complete breeze. In fact, the trickiest part by far was attempting to waddle the three steps to the water's edge while strapped to several times my own body weight in equipment. We didn't get that much time on the ocean floor as we had to devote most of the session to safety procedures, and then descend very, very s-l-o-w-l-y, but it was good fun, once you'd shaken off that nagging sensation that death was imminent.  As an added bonus, we looked incredibly fetching throughout:

Note how the lycra sting-suit reveals the previously unsuspected bizareness of Mike's head shape. My black suit was a bit of a rarity - just about everyone else was resplendent in what were essentially skin-tight smurf costumes.

Our boat stopped at three different spots along the reef - having dived at the first, we snorkelled at the next two, which in fact brought you up much more close and personal to the fish and corals. We'd rented an underwater digital camera, on the assumption that lack of said camera was all that was standing between us and stunning coffee book-worthy photos. Unfortunately it turns out that it's next to impossible to see through a viewfinder underwater, so I succeeded only in taking 273 rather hazy pictures, most of which were attempts to capture a parrot fish. There are a few good ones in there, but it's going to take a while to sort them out, so for now I'll leave you with a slightly fuzzy but amazingly fluorescent clam - at least, I think it's a clam; please feel free to correct me!

That's all for now folks - we're off to Sri Lanka at an ungodly hour tomorrow (guess what I'm procrastinating from by writing this now?), and we'll be back here when we can, but I'm guessing our internet access will be a bit sporadic. Passe hamu wemu! (Which could mean, "please may I have another of your fine chicken sandwiches?", for all I know - I should probably make better acquaintance of the phrase book.)

P.S. A few sliiight amendments to Mike's last post:

"Roybert, or Royer or Rayman or something" = Roman

"Brendon" = Brandon

"Norbert the Wonder Parrot" = Bozo. Admittedly Norbert seems an almost sensible name for a cockatoo by comparison.