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April 21, 1999

We kept the van full of gas and safely arrive in Exmouth at about 4 pm. Along the way we stopped at Aussie's Pebble Beach (no golf course anywhere). We met a family from Perth, who informed us that Exmouth had just started allowing tourists to enter again after the routing they received from cyclone Vance four weeks prior to our arrival. But, they informed us, the damage was "barely noticeable." We pulled into town through a thick haze of purple smoke (which we later found out was mosquito repellent), we saw demolished buildings, road signs and trees bent in half, over-turned farm equipment and realized the people at pebble beach were either obviously mad or, very, very nearsighted.

Our hopes were high the next morning as we boarded the M/V Blue Horizon. The skipper, and his little buddy, seemed so sure that they would lead us to the elusive beast that they even busted out charts and pictures. They briefed us on how to snorkel near the world’s largest fish without startling the beast or getting defecated upon. Our time had come, and our persistence was about pay off. High above, a twin-propeller, "spotter" plane circled the Gulf of Exmouth. We went out to the sundeck to wait.

Three hours later, darkened by the suns rays, we were awoken by the highly anticipated call - "lunch!" After lunch we had a snorkel by the reef and returned to port.