Great Barrier Reef: Will There Be a Take Two?

As I explained in my application essay for “The Best Job in the World” on Hamilton Island in the Great Barrier Reef, my first trip to the Great Barrier Reef—for our honeymoon a few years back—didn’t go exactly as planned. Throughout elementary school, I started all writing projects with “Once upon a time in Australia…” But I don’t recall my stories ever ending with four days on a small cruise ship, being tossed around by windy weather and Scuba diving in waters so dark and cloudy you couldn’t see five feet in front of your face (very similar to a night dive).

But don’t take your tiny violin out of its case for me. After our flight back to Sydney, we made up for our Great Barrier Reef experience with an unforgettable date night: dinner at Nick’s Seafood restaurant in Darling Harbour, followed, of course, by a visit to the Sydney Aquarium to see some of the fish we didn’t see up north off Cairns (pronounced Kens):

Visiting the Great Barrier Reef was number one on my life’s to-do list. (See more from my list here.) What’s on your life’s to-do list? What should I add to mine now that the Great Barrier Reef is more-or-less checked off? And were you one of the other 35,000 applicants for the “Best Job in the World?”