And here is the second.
Please let me know if you enjoy reding these. I sure hd fun LIVING them.

ramblin two
OVER THE GREAT BARRIER REEF -- When I first started writing this column, nearly 40 years ago, one of the first things I wrote about was a vacation our family spent in the Bahamas. We had flown down there in my husband's Skylane, over water so beautiful it was impossible to describe.
I used all the words I could think of to name the various hues of blues and greens. And finally I just fell back on one simple description: "This water is incredible."
Now, forty years later, I can do no better.
The water over the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, half a world away from the Bahama Islands, is simply incredible.
Now, as then, I spent a day snorkeling. But there were differences.
Then I was in a protected cove, with gentle swelling waves, over random reefs. No one else was around, but me, my teenage son and a couple of other teenagers who lived on those out islands. We dived off a little boat, and the boys swooped around spearing fish for our dinner. I moved slowly, quietly, my flippers keeping me afloat, while I marvelled at the wonderful world beneath the sea.
I was younger then, and stronger. I could swim. Now my knees are gone, my shoulder has never really "thawed out" since that surgery for a torn rotator cuff. Water, except in my shower or in the wading section of my backyard pool, scares me.
Nevertheless, when we left the QE2 to take a jaunt right over the reef off the coast of Cairns in northern Australia, I wanted to be where the action was. In the water, with mask and snorkel.
Thanks to a wonderful man named Stephen, I was there. Stephen is a native Britisher, in Australia for the past two decades, and for 12 years a marine naturalist with Great Adventures which had been charged by Q2 folks to take about 215 of us intrepid passengers to the reef.
We skimmed over incredibly blue water (I hope I don't overuse that word incredible) about 30 miles to a pontoon moored near Green Island, right on top of the reef.
I told Stephen on the catamaran that I wanted to snorkel but I hesitated because of my limitations. He just grinned at me. No problem, he assured me. I will take care of you.
And he did.
There were eight of us "poor swimmers" in his little group. He outfitted me with these mammoth fins, helped me fit a mask tightly to my face and over my nose, and adjusted my breathing tube in my mouth. Then slowly he helped me down the narrow ladder into the water.
He held out a huge rubber ring, the kind they throw to folks who go overboard, and told me just to hold on. I put my face in the water, took a big gulp of air through my tube, and held on. For 25 minutes he towed me through the water, all the time keeping a running commentary that I could not always hear, pointing out the marvelous sights below.
So many kinds of coral! Some looked like sticks and some brains. Some like rocks and some like twigs on a tree. Most were beigey, but some were bright blue and some tinged with the pinkish hue that is associated with these little marine animals that form the reef -- coral. Stephen warned us not to stand on the coral -- as a designated World Heritage Site it is protected against vandals and we could not touch, break off a piece, snitch a souvenir.
This reef is about 1200 miles in length, all across the northeastern corner of Australia, which is a much bigger continent than it looks on the maps we had in school.
This was just one little bit of it. Naturalists say there are more than 2000 species of marine animals and 400 species of plant life in the reef ecosystem, the most complex on the planet. I was not counting, but I know I saw 20 varieties of fish. Some were huge, and some were teenytiny. Stephen named most of them, not that I remembered more than parrot fish, yellow tails, dog face, etc. At one time he pulled me through a school of fish about 10 to 14 inches in length, shiny white with pink mouths and gills. The tiger fish were striped yellow and black, just like the ferocious animal they are named for. The parrotfish was brightly colored, just like the tropical bird.
There were so many of them it was like diving into a tank in an aquarium, I reached out to try to touch one with my hands, but they snooted me and passed on by.
Of great interest was the giant clam lying on a little hill of brain coral. Stephen gently toed it with his flipper, and the clam rippled its sides in and out, trying to close off the danger.
We did not see any sharks, but we did see a small man of war, a ray fish.
Nor did we see any jelly fish, an infestation of which has virtually closed all the beaches in northern Australia this summer. We were out a little far for them, Stephen said.
I sputtered and swallowed salt water. Stephen asked me if I wanted to go back. No way. Not till my time was up. I had only one eye open at this point, so much salt stinging my right eye. No matter. I could still see and marvel.
Reluctantly, at the end of the tour, I let them help me out of the ocean and back onto the pontoon. My nose was running, my arms were aching, my back was sunburned. And I was happy.
I showered in fresh water and tried to put my clothes back on in a cubicle smaller than my broom closet. I gotta tell you about this. The boy who was helping me to the showers opened the first door and exposed a tall passenger standing buck naked. He let out a yelp and grabbed for something -- his towel, the door, I don't know. But dozens of people standing around whooped and his face (of course I was looking at his face!) turned redder than his sunburn. (I made sure my door was locked.)
It was a tired bunch of people who climbed aboard the catamaran for the journey back to the ship lying at harbor near Yorkey's Knob.
And there were lots of sunburned faces at dinner table that evening.
Nevertheless, it was a great day. I had come to Australia to see the Barrier Reef, and see it I did,
One last word. How did it compare with the Bahamas? The reef was bigger, with far more varieties of coral. But I think the fish in the Bahamian waters were more varied, more colorful. I recommend either one.

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