I tried a Cadbury Cherry Ripe and was able to stay up until 830pm last night. I feel confident this will be sufficient for the liveaboard schedule. I’m up at 430am so I can get flu powder and ibuprofen for Caleb since he’s starting to feel worse and a slice of banana bread for me. He was up coughing and didn’t sleep well. We checked our dive insurance, which requires a doctor’s note, and he’s not ill enough for that, so he’s got two days to recover before our first dive. We fly from Sydney to Cairns in 26 hours.

I go downstairs for breakfast alone and bring him a sandwich or two (thinking we would have lunch in the room) and make him a cup of medicinal tea so he can go back to sleep. I look up directions to Beare Park and start my adventure with at least six flights of stairs going up the side of an apartment complex that incorporated the stone wall into the blueprints. There’s a little waterfall and pond between two sidewalks, some suitcases marked for trash pickup, and a car with the plate: WHEATS. Men are sunning in their Speedos, dogs are off-leash, and women are talking in the shade.

I watch two dogs, like a scene from 101 Dalmatians, as they get their owners to let them parallel play in the water. The beach here is blocked off in both directions, so I won’t be exploring that any further. Caleb lets me know that he ate our lunch. I find something to eat at The Bowls, their lemongrass chicken lunch special. I wouldn’t get it again, but I do finish it. Costing almost just as much for dessert will be the deluxe tiramisù affogato from Rivareno Gelato, and I smile at passersby vs offering to buy them one so they can know the joys of coffee and ice cream with a sweet dish included.

I take my time getting back to the room, read about the truth and reconciliation commissions in Canada and Australia, and shower. I pack our bags, leave the four 5-cent coins we found, and make Caleb another tea. I let it cool before I wake him. I look at things to do in Cairns tomorrow between landing at the airport and getting on the catamaran, which should be about six hours. Caleb is still coughing, in the same bed as me, as I prepare to dream about sea turtles, sharks, and stroopwafles.