We have a quick breakfast and David, being the slow and stubborn learner he always has been, simply drinks coffee and eats nothing despite Cynthia’s admonition that he might want some energy seeing as how he’ll be snorkeling for two hours soon. Then it’s a harried and hurried drive a half hour to Ocean Safari’s HQ right next to the Turtle Rock Café, where Cynthia leaves David and takes the Hyundai Santa Fe SUV on her first drive this entire trip. She’s going back down the road, past our lodge to a place named Lync-Haven to do laundry. It’s owner has several large and loud parrots and one ornery cockatiel, all of which she lets out of their cages so they can make mad commentary on the tourists sitting at tables around them. On her way back to Ocean Safari to pick up David later in the day, Cynthia drives by two cassowary: the adult large and basically black, the young one still mostly brown. They are too far from the road and intermittently hidden by brush so she is unable to get photos.

Meanwhile, back at Ocean Safari, David has made friends with Sam Hunter and Danielle Peck, two architects in their 30s who are unmarried partners, engaging, amusing, witty, etc. They and about 15 other people are corralled and instructed and some of us put on wetsuits and we all walk across the road and down a forested path to a beach where we board a large pontoon boat. “Winds about 20 knots, so bit of swell,” Ian says. “If you want some adventure in your arse, sit on the pontoons at the side. Got a bad back, get in the back by the smelly loud engines. We’ll get to Mackai key in about 45 minutes and snorkel for an hour, then see where we go next depending on the conditions.”

We slam over the swells with AC/DC blistering the white hot sky above us and hook up next to a large sand bar surrounded by the Great Barrier Reef. Fins, masks and snorkels are handed out. “Most people spit in masks but we believe in hygiene so you don’t need to do that,” Ian says. “We’ve sprayed them with baby shampoo. Does the trick. Everyone can swim? If you can’t, try to stay above the water and yell as loud as you can and hope Brett or I can see you.” He tells us where to look for the turtles but not to touch them, and tells us a bit about the other creatures we might see. “That sandy bottom you see between some of the corals, that’s the coral the parrotfish eat and poop out. Think about that when you’re walking on the beach home today.”

First thing David sees is a four foot shark with sleek gills behind its long and pointed snout wafting between some coral mounds about 10 feet in front of him. Dead stop, cease breathing … it arcs a quarter circle and drifts away, disappearing into a shallow canyon of blue and brown and gray coral. Then: Every shape and color of coral you can imagine. Angelfish, batfish, boxfish, butterflyfish, giant clams, parrotfish, rabbitfish, starfish, triggerfish, tuskfish, and wrasse, all in every variety and color combination imaginable (and purposely seen in alphabetical order, too). That’s just a few of the many species I remember, which Ian pointed to, along with the whitetip reef shark, when I pointed to pictures he had on the boat.

Hours in the ocean, rising and falling with the swells, part of a different and splendid world. Ian says most of the reef is still alive; he does not believe estimates that it is 70 percent or more bleached. He thinks the opposite, that only 30 percent is, if that, and that the bleached area is mostly 150-plus kilometers to the south, near Cairns. “Been a skipper hereabouts for 12 years. I can get a job in an hour anywhere with my licenses. Seen coral bleached white in one week, and seen the color come back the next.” Hmmmm ….

We smack back to the beach listening to Time of Your Life compete with the boat’s engines and the prow’s pranging into the troughs between waves. Cynthia’s at the café to take us to a rainforest boardwalk and we make plans to meet Sam and Danielle for dinner at the Whet Restaurant. Unfortunately, David’s so knackered from not eating anything and swimming for hours that he has to be driven back to the lodge for a nice nap.

A shower revives David and Cynthia is a good sport and forgives his self-induced absence and we drive out of our lodge and onto the road and immediately see two adult cassowary not more than 15 feet from us. Click, click, click! Absolutely prehistoric, head like a diplodocus or whatever dinosaur had a bony mohawk ridge), purple and orange and straight outta Dr. Seuss.

Dinner with Sam and Daniel at Whet is like new friends are old friends. Lovely, relaxed, funny, informative evening during which we discover so many remarkable similarities in our lives that we’re all nodding and saying “Kismet” by the time we get up to leave and the bartender says, “drive carefully. Friend I know ran over a crock crossing the road just here last night.”

And by the way, though Daintree is beyond pluvial, we’ve had nothing but sunny skies for two days. It must be karmic payback for the rain we’ve had everywhere else.

Another day of Kismet in Oz.