It feels a bit like being in an episode of The Prisoner, staying on this island. Surely the reason I conked out so early must have been due to the fact I was gassed or they drugged me, plus whenever you order something you go by your room number so you quickly get used to calling yourself 'Number 6' or 'Number 12'. And it's all just too *perfect*, y'know? When I got up at 6am this morning I caught people raking the beaches to make them look 'just so', picking up all the leaves and vulgar tidal detritus, and moving all the terns and gulls around until they looked artistic. I bet if I made a run for it right now, a big beachball would chase me down the sand...

Seriously though, hidden in the centre of the island is a whole bunch of chalets that aren't spoken about which are where the staff live - the silent people that move around in the shadows and at night looking after the desalination plant and boat repairs and electricity supplies and things. And of course there are an army of people who clean the chalets and stock the bar and cook in the restaurant...but the aim is for only a few select people to actually be visible during working hours - the clean people, the ones who serve you drinks and arrange your trips for you, the over healthy dive instructors and the token eccentric looking nature expert kept locked away in the research centre and only wheel out for the ocassional lecture. And all so a bunch of sweaty pink people wrapped in beach towels can mooch around all day drinking cocktails while their squalling brats can cut themselves on coral and be sick in the pool.

I was booked on a 9 am dive, and I was reminded just how unready I can feel to scuba when I've just got up, there is a cold breeze blowing off the ocean, the sea is crisp and chill, and my breakfast is still sitting undigested in my guts. I'm really going to have to give in and acknowledge that whatever future scuba I do, I'm going to have to skip morning dives, my poor weak constitution just isn't up to it.

It was a good dive though. It was a small group and I got paired up with a dive master who was obsessed with getting great photos and so ambled along at a nice steady pace. Got my perfunctary nosebleed of course, so it looks like my nasal capillaries still haven't hardened anything up yet, oh well.

At 11am, I went on a snorkel ride. Now the rig at Heron Island is that as all the good dive sites are just 15mins away at the reef edge, or maybe just the next reef next door (the Wisteria reef), the 9am diveboat theoretically gets you back in time for the 11am dive/snorkel boat. This assumes you're prepared to sprint to your room and back if you need a wee, and you're confident you can get your wet suit off quickly. As soon as the dive boat moored on the jetty, at least 3 divers sprinted off down the jetty, another couple close behind at a brisk walking pace. We did, indeed, all make it back to the boat on time but it certainly was a close run thing for one or two individuals. Yes I know you *can* wee in your wet suit, but when you're wearing dive boots, its just as likely to hang around inside or come out the top - still not a particularly nice prospect if you still have the option of a proper toilet available to you.

The snorkelling kicked arse - and in my humble opinion was just as good as the scuba plus you got a little longer with snorkelling (about an hour) and far less pratting around with tanks and weights and things. It was over 'The coral canyons', a reef edge site with lots of caves and arches and things where you got a lot of brightly coloured coral on the top and big interesting fish in the caves. Of course these days they are safety concious about everything and even insist that you snorkel in buddy pairs, but I got threesomed up with a nice benign pair who were quite happy pootling along behind me so it was all fine and dandy. We all got gently pushed along by the current too so it was actually very little effort all in, and the chief challenge was staying warm because you weren't generating heat by trying to propel yourself anywhere.

The snorkel boat got back in good time for a shower, quick light lunch, and (because it was low tide) a short 'reef walk'. You see, because Heron Island is a coral cay, it remains uniformally shallow for a good distance from the shore until the drop off. At high tide, that whole area round the island is perfect for great snorkelling, and at low tide you can walk all the way to the drop off in calf high water and poke at coral with sticks.

The Island activity centre has a whole rack of old trainers drying in the sun and at any time you can pick up a pair and set off walking on the reef (it was drilled into us that only enclosed shoes were allowed on the reef). They also provided you with glass bottomed buckets so you could look at stuff, and sticks so you could poke stuff...er...I mean steady yourself as you walk. (I'm ashamed to admit it was actually pretty dull in comparison to snorkel and scuba, though a novel experience to be that far out from the shore in only ankle deep water).

I had a quick sit down with beer before the final dive/snorkel boat of the day. As the snorkelling was better value for money I swapped my dive for a snorkel and also got myself one of those new fangled underwater disposable snap cameras and this time (despite being buddied with a very scatty German who kept trying to free dive and choke herself, or bang into me) I ambled along taking inane snaps of all the fishies. I have been assured that these snap cameras are actually crap unless you are right next to your subject, so we'll just have to see how it all turns out - maybe I've just got 27 pictures of blurry nonsense. Well actually I only came back with 20 pictures taken so just to finish off the day I had a quick snorkel over to 'The Protector', an old warship that had been dumped on the breakwater near the jetty to a: be a nesting ground for birds, b: be a landmark for the ships and c: be a good centre of snorkelling attention for the visitors. For 5 mins paddle from the beach it was damn good I have to admit and I rattled off the last few pictures trying to capture a reef shark that was nearby.

I must admit, I was buggered by the end of my day. I had a quick cocktail at the bar to chill out (and was muggered by a Rail for my pineapple slice and cherry while I was taking a photo), and then finished up with dinner, a bottle of white, and waking up at 3am on the top of the bed with a book over my face. Damn it, what do they put in the drinks round here?