I never thought I liked the ocean...

and then I visited the Sunshine coast. WOW. what an amazing place.  I do like the ocean.

This day was one of my favorites!  It was just so beautiful and relaxing and australian!  Do you see Kent coming in on a wave?

 I've never been anywhere tropical (unless you consider san diego tropical).  The sunshine coast is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen!

Even the walk up to the beach was exciting!  You go up and over a big mountain/sand dune covered in thick vegetation-

and then you just step onto the beach. It was incredible!!

The beach was called 'Noosa heads' and it was nearly empty even though the temp was in the eighties!!
Since they are going into fall- all of their summer stuff is on clearance and my uncle found these snazzy boards for a few bucks. 

Here's Kent in his baywatch pic that I took.  He got a lot of body boarding in.  I played for awhile but kept getting sucked into the waves. I'm no good at water. But it was the perfect temp for swimming and we loved it!

Really- the whole day was perfect!  definitely part of how I envisioned Australia!
After Noosa we went for fish and chips and then to check out a place called 'Mooloolaba'.  It was just a little way further along the Sunshine coast and was also incredible!  Such a different beach than noosa-but still fabulous.

The sun was getting closer to setting so we didn't swim- but spent lots of time searching the tide pools and getting wet.

I thought that Kent was going to get knocked off the spit here.

Here he is getting something off his leg completely unaware.

And then realizing what's happening.

And after the wave.

I nearly got soaked with my camera!  The tides were coming in and would get unexpectedly high occasionally.
Here I am searching for critters.  There were TONS of crabs but they were super fast and very sneaky.  It was nearly impossible to get a picture.

Here are a few of the creatures I caught on camera.

and this crab- well- he's dead. it's the only way I could get a decent shot.  Could you tell he was dead before I gave it away?























Every time I'd see a bunch of them- they'd take off between the rocks.

I really miss Australia- and looking at all of these pictures isn't helping matters.