Anticipating a 6am start, I dreamt last night that my alarm didn’t go off and I woke at 6.50am – too late to make it to the marina for our tour of the Great Barrier Reef. I woke, relieved that it had been a dream and it was 5.50am.
Except that I had misread my watch.
It was, in fact, EXACTLY AS I HAD DREAMT: my alarm hadn’t gone off, it was 6.50am and I was too late to make it to the marina for our reef tour.
Panicked, I called the tour operators who were kind enough to move our tour day to tomorrow. Breathing a sigh of relief, I stepped out onto the verandah. The sky was overcast and unlikely to clear up tomorrow or anytime during the rest of our trip. Visibility for the dive wouldn’t be great but at least it wouldn’t rain. At least it wasn’t cold. At least we had this amazing view.
My husband was feeling rubbish and wouldn’t have come today anyway. There was a remote chance (but still a chance!) that he’d be well enough for tomorrow. That is, until he tested positive for COVID this afternoon.
I cancelled the reef tour – the one we’d previously cancelled last year when border closures scuttled our honeymoon plans, the one we then rescheduled for today, then rescheduled for tomorrow.
Today is our anniversary.
My husband would rather be at home and I would rather be any number of other places on this planet. But I wouldn’t want to be with anyone else, or without him.
Some major things have gone majorly wrong for us in the past year: such as a COVID lockdown commencing on our wedding day. And still, our relationship has grown better and stronger, partly despite and partly as a result of the things that didn’t go to plan.
While the “happy anniversary” messages from family felt a little ironic with Honeymoon Take 2 turning into Lockdown 2.0, I am, nonetheless, honestly, unequivocally, actually, so so happy to be married to this guy.
Read how the pandemic scuttled our original honeymoon (and wedding) plans in 2021.
See pictures from my solo trip to the Great Barrier Reef.
Header image: Илья Мельниченко.
⎯suansita⎯ 
I hope he feels better soon and that you manage to avoid it. You’ll get out on the reef one day :).
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Thanks! I ended up flying home early last night and I tested negative again today but my sinuses are a bit funny, so we’ll see! I did actually do a few dives at the Reef back in 2016 but Ray has never been and I was keen to go again. But given the lifetime credit on the tour, we’ll probably go again 🙂
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Ann, wishing you and Ray a belated happy anniversary we hope Ray’s symptoms are mild and that he recovers soon. Love from us all.
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Thank you! He is slowly getting through it so hopefully symptom free by the end of the week and able to fly home 🙂
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