Aquatic Giants – Heyawake / Marching Bands

Question

_{This is part 52 of the puzzle series Around the World in Many Days. Each part is solvable on its own.}

---

“One, two, three, four, five, I love marine wildlife.” – unknown

Dear Puzzling,

The grid on the left-hand side is a Heyawake puzzle. Shade some cells in the grid. Shaded cells cannot share an edge, and all unshaded cells must be orthogonally connected. No vertical or horizontal stretch of unshaded cells may span more than two regions (marked with bolded lines). A number in a region indicates the number of shaded cells in that region.

The right-hand side grid is a Marching Bands crossword. The number clues (marchers) fill each row left to right. The letter clues (bands) go clockwise around the grid, starting in the indicated cell.

Today I have travelled to a flourishing coral reef filled with rich marine life and jumped off the side of a boat to swim with whale sharks, gentle aquatic giants. Can you guess where I am?

Love, Gladys.

Heyawake on Penpa+
Marching Bands on Penpa+

Marchers
1a. Apartment, flat
1b. Charged particle
2a. Counterpart of hen, in the party sense
2b. Health resort
3. Decorated with shiny disc-shaped ornaments
4. Name formerly used for the Archean eon in geology
5a. Greek colonnade
5b. Flower garland
6a. Web portal with an Instant Messenger (abbr.)
6b. Put in order
7a. Train that travels above ground level, for short
7b. German-style cake

Bands
A1. Institute of higher education in North African nation
A2. Spaniard's relative in what follows lights and camera
A3. Negative response in Beatles' words preceding "submarine"
A4. Quote in great enthusiasm
A5. Move somewhat quickly in the subway for a Parisian and a Londoner
A6. Meadows in the magic word?
A7. Three dits spelt out in CPU's P
B1. Identifiers in days of the German weekend
B2. One half of gripping tool in distributors
B3. Capital city in follow-up to "down low"
B4. Peak in Sir Thomas More's work
C1. Lusophone country in Indian beverage
C2. Magical land in wintry Disney film

---

Gladys will return in Unchained Again.

Answer 1

Gladys is along

the Ningaloo Coast.

The crossword, solved:

Marchers:

unit, ion;
stag, spa;
spangly;
eozoic;
stoa, lei;
AOL, sort;
el, torte

Bands:

uni (in "Tunisia"), tio (in "action"), nay (in "in a yellow"); cite (in "excitement"), trot (in "Métro, tube"), leas (in "please"), ess (in "processor");
tags (in "Samstag, Sonntag"), plier (in "suppliers"), Oslo (in "too slow"), top (in "Utopia");
Angola (in "mango lassi"), Oz (in "Frozen")

The Heyawake, solved:

I used no strategy for the Heyawake. It was trial and error.

Combining the two puzzles

by superimposition, the shaded squares spell out "Ningaloo Coast":