August 4 (continued)
After our ferry ride to Magnetic Island, we drove to Horseshoe Bay and got a nice hostel for the night. After, we had plenty of time to do some hikes around the forts there. We saw excellent views and a few koalas.
August 5
An early rise and we are off on the ferry back and driving south towards Airlie Beach. On the way we stop at the Billabong Wildlife Sanctuary, which has just about every animal unique too Australia, including a fair number of crocodiles. The day begins with some basic touring of area, which includes cages with snakes and lizards and pens with koalas. In addition, the area is home to free roaming kangaroos, giant bats, and various odd birds. After some time there is a small presentation where they let everyone hold a small crocodile, a quaint tourist attraction. The real action comes later though, when the salt water crocodile feeding starts. After watching a few demonstrations with massive crocodiles as old as 80 years where the crocodiles seemed more lazy and disinterested, we move to a pen with a smaller croc bearing the name of Psycho. Though smaller and younger than Snappy Tom (who is known for snapping the head clean off one of his former mates), Psycho seems to offer a but more action than the others. The rangers seem to enjoy toying with the crocs, dangling pieces of meat from sticks just out of reach, forcing the crocodile to jump straight up out of the water in a violent thrash. Fortunately the crocodiles generally seem more interested in the meat than the rangers. After our visit, we drive the rest of the way to Airlie Beach and get a place to stay. The rest of the day is spent relaxing around the town.
August 6
Our first day of sailing doesn't actually start until 4:00 pm, but we spend most of our day returning our car and preparing for the sailing trip and checking in, which is about 2 hours ahead of time. Our boat is The Samurai, an old racing boat from the early 80's. Its bright red hull and racing history seem to have overshadowed some of the areas of the ship that were lacking a bit more in condition. Nineteen passengers cram onto this 65 foot boat with an old skipper named Dave, two crew members both named Johno, and a dishy from France named Vanessa. After motoring out of the marina it becomes apparent that the operation here is a bit substandard, based on the bent railings and the smell of the engine burning oil in the hold. With both sails raised, we set off for our first destination for the night where we will stop for dinner and to sleep. Everything is smooth sailing, and all the passengers are fairly social. Of the 19 passengers, only 4 are girls. There is a group from France, a group from England, a couple kids from Canada, and a few other loners from Italy and Switzerland. The Johnos manage the sails and basic tasks as ordered by the skipper. Big Johno is from Australia and is the experienced crew member and the cook. Little Johno is from New Zealand and is the dive master for the trip and has apparently never sailed before taking a job on board this boat, which he has only been on for 6 weeks. There are some oddities about how the boat is managed, such as having only one jib sheet, but I suppose if you never tack, you don't really need the other rope cluttering the deck. We anchor around dusk and everyone enjoys an evening out on the water and under the stars, eating steaks off the barbecue and drinking whatever they brought before going to bed very early.
August 7
An early rise and some breakfast and we set out for Whitehaven beach. Today the seas are rough and the 30 knot winds give the skipper reason enough to only run with the jib. We are run to the beach via a small inflatable dingy. Another boat, the Tallarook, seems to be following the same route and is part of eh same company, and their dingy also runs people to and from the beach. The crew member that drives the dingy from the Tallarook is not quite as friendly and outgoing as our crew, but he really seems to love motoring around in his little yellow raft. With an odd skull/skeleton tatty on his right shoulder and a thick metal necklace and metal studded belt, he certainly displays the attitude he delivers. Perhaps he just enjoys the opportunity to be captain of his own ship. We hike over the back side of the beach we are ferried too to get to a lookout that overlooks Whitehaven beach on the other side. Its windy and the floating cumulus clouds offer enough occasional shade to pretty much rule out any desire to swim, but just walking on the fine white sand is a unique experience. After some time enjoying the area, we return to the other side and back to our boat and set sail for out next destination. Once again, we are running on only the jib, which is again rigged with only one sheet. The winds seem stronger and the boat seems to barely roll over the ocean swells, which are definitely taller than the height of the deck, but cruising in this kind of conditions makes for a bit more excitement. After a while, big Johno shouts from his post at the bow and points at the water next to the boat. A large pod of dolphins race with the bow, occasionally darting one way or another and jumping out of the water. Most of the passengers flock towards the bow, and so do some of the crew. After a while the skipper apparently was upset over the number of people huddled next to the jib and had trouble communicating with his crew, since little Johno abandoned his post midway on the ship to also go to the bow. The skipper solved this problem by turning the boat perpendicular to the wave, plunging the bow and everyone on it into each on coming swell. It certainly succeeded in dispersing the passengers and getting the attention of the crew. The skipper scolded little Johno and sailing resumed as normal. After a while it came time to turn the boat. The wind was coming from the rear starboard and a left turn was needed. The crew tied on the second jib sheet, now that it was finally needed, and the skipper opted to do a 270 degree tack instead of a jibe. As the boat spun, the crew let out the jib and began cranking in the other jib sheet, only to find that it had come untied. Now the boat is dead in the water with 30 knot winds sending the jib in all different directions. The crew scramble back to the other jib sheet to try and crank it in to begin to fix the situation. They fumble with the sheet, at first wrapping it around the winch the wrong way. When they finally got it on the right way and began cranking it back, the sail and sheet were flailing wildly. The boat is rigged with a front stay between the jib and mast, and a boat hook is attached to the stay in a PVC pipe. The jib sheet wraps itself around the boat hook, bends it in half, yanks it out of its PVC holder, and tosses it overboard like a tentacle on a straw. The Johnos are still winding the winch furiously, with the sheet winding slowly around a horribly disfigured tangle of rope. It was a pretty funny site. Finally the force of the sail beating on the front stay snaps it at the base and cracks the PVC pipe, sending half of the pipe launching off the boat. Now that the crew have thoroughly lost control of the boat, the skipper orders the passengers into the hold below for our safety while they deal with their mess. The 19 of us sit down in the hold, which is full of fumes from the diesel engine that has been running, and sit patiently waiting. Eventually they fix the problem and we are allowed back up. Its lunch time, but after spending 20 minutes in the hold in heavy seas, most people had lost their appetite. Me and Colin from Canada are the only two that go into the hold and begin chowing down on the hot dogs, pasta, and salad without hesitance as the boat continues to rock over the swells. Eventually we get to our next destination in a cove where we get to do our first dive (which turns out to be the only dive). I am in with the certified diver group with Ryan, the two Canadians, one of the French kids, and a dive master and two passengers from the Tallarook. The rest of the passengers get filed along to do introductory dives after us. We suit up, but most of our equipment seems heavily used. Some people have difficulty with their gauges, but eventually we find seemingly functioning rigs. For the first time, I am covered head to tow, with a hood, gloves, and full body stinger suit. Unfortunately, for the first time, I don't have a wet suit. The stinger suit offers protection from jellyfish, but little protection from the cold. We begin our dive and begin cruising through a complex topography of canyons and walls. My primary second stage regulator starts letting in water right away and I'm forced to use the secondary regulator, which is fine, but shouldn't happen. Apart from the faulty equipment and lack of insulation in cold water, the dive is great. We surface after 35 minutes and go to a beach nearby where the passengers are either relaxing and sun bathing or are being filed into their groups for their intro dives. The skull tattooed dingy driver from the Tallarook seems to be ordering people around into their groups. His primary job is transporting people in his little yellow dingy, and damned if he is going to let a couple of tourists slow him down. We wait on the beach warming up from the cold dive while they go through the groups of intro divers and eventually transport us back to our boats. The original plan is to sail to another place before dinner, but because of the wind and waves, plans are changed and we stay here for the night. At sunset big Johno spots an eagle circling above. He seems to have some experience with the birds, and begins waving a peace of raw meat in the air and whistling to his best efforts. He tosses the meat out into the water as the eagle nears. A few attempts yield a hesitant response, but the last toss sends the eagle diving towards the water and swooping up the slab of meat. The rest of the night is another nice night of socializing and eating pot roast, though the wind sends most of us into the hold.
August 8
Since the change in plans, our last day of sailing has to make up for lost ground. We spend part of the morning at a Butterfly Bay, but the rest of it is sailing back to Airlie Beach. The wind is still ferocious and the seas are still heavy. Most of those on deck are consistently soaked by waves washing over the port, but I manage to get a shielded position on the starboard side of the mast where I can remain dry and laugh as Ryan and Rory and Jon get more wet with each wave. We arrive in Airlie Beach about an hour late, but still have plenty of time to gather our things and meet back up with Scott (who didn't do much of anything over the past two days, and loved every minute of it) before our flight back to Sydney. We arrive in Sydney and ride to the Pink House, our hostile in Kingscross and get an early night.
August 9
Our day begins walking in towards the city center. We walk along the bays edge towards the opera house. The opera house and the harbor bridge really are the focal point of the city. I'd say more than half of my photos in Sydney were taken of the opera house and the bridge. The guys plan to spend the afternoon at the aquarium, but after all the diving I've done, I'd rather spend my time in Sydney seeing other things. I read of an architecture walk in our Lonely Planet guide, but I just barely missed the one for that day and there were no more scheduled for my time in Sydney. Fortunately I had arrived in Sydney during a design festival, and went to the Powerhouse Museum to see their temporary exhibits on architecture, furniture, industrial design, and graphic art. I spent the remainder of the day touring various areas of the city and eventually wandered back to the opera house and back along the harbor's edge towards the hostile, catching the opera house and bridge in all their glory at sunset. I purchased some potatoes, broccoli, a bottle of cheap pinot noir, and a hunk of kangaroo steak to grill back at the hostile. A fine tasting kangaroo it was.
August 10
Scott and Rory are miserably useless in the morning, so Jon and Ryan and I leave them and catch a subway ride to Bondi beach. Spending the morning walking the cliffs along the ocean was an excellent way to begin our last day. The wind was even more fierce here than it was in the Whitsundays, and the waves slammed against the rocks below with such force, we could feel the sea spray hundreds of feet away. We walked all over the Bondi area and eventually headed back into the city to meet back with Rory and Scott. We toured The Rocks for a while, stopped for a drink at the Fortune of War, reputed as Sydney's oldest pub, and continued up past the bridge. Jon and I stopped for a photo op of the bridge, and managed to lose Ryan, Rory and Scott in the process. Jon and I looked around and decided to make the best of our day and meet up with the other guys later. We walked the harbor bridge, got some nice photos, and made our way back to Kingscross. We spent the evening out with the other hostile members at The World Bar, which offered such deals as free pitchers with our large group, buy one get one free drinks before ten, and $7.50 jugs of Victoria Bitter before midnight. We met some local and not-so-local aussies and reminisced about the trip.
August 11
The longest day of my life. We wake up at 6:30 am on the 11 of august to go to the airport. Our flight is slightly complicated by the recent terrorist attempt in Britain, but its no problem to shove our liquids into our checked baggage. Our travel time is close to 24 hours between our first 6 our flight into Tahiti and our second 12 hours flight fall behind schedule. We go through night and day again before arriving in New York on the same day, only 7 hours after we took off. Pretty strange. The trip is over, now its time to deal with the jet lag and get back to the boring reality of home. I think this is it for the blog, not enough happens around here to make for particularly interesting reading. Later.
After our ferry ride to Magnetic Island, we drove to Horseshoe Bay and got a nice hostel for the night. After, we had plenty of time to do some hikes around the forts there. We saw excellent views and a few koalas.
August 5
An early rise and we are off on the ferry back and driving south towards Airlie Beach. On the way we stop at the Billabong Wildlife Sanctuary, which has just about every animal unique too Australia, including a fair number of crocodiles. The day begins with some basic touring of area, which includes cages with snakes and lizards and pens with koalas. In addition, the area is home to free roaming kangaroos, giant bats, and various odd birds. After some time there is a small presentation where they let everyone hold a small crocodile, a quaint tourist attraction. The real action comes later though, when the salt water crocodile feeding starts. After watching a few demonstrations with massive crocodiles as old as 80 years where the crocodiles seemed more lazy and disinterested, we move to a pen with a smaller croc bearing the name of Psycho. Though smaller and younger than Snappy Tom (who is known for snapping the head clean off one of his former mates), Psycho seems to offer a but more action than the others. The rangers seem to enjoy toying with the crocs, dangling pieces of meat from sticks just out of reach, forcing the crocodile to jump straight up out of the water in a violent thrash. Fortunately the crocodiles generally seem more interested in the meat than the rangers. After our visit, we drive the rest of the way to Airlie Beach and get a place to stay. The rest of the day is spent relaxing around the town.
August 6
Our first day of sailing doesn't actually start until 4:00 pm, but we spend most of our day returning our car and preparing for the sailing trip and checking in, which is about 2 hours ahead of time. Our boat is The Samurai, an old racing boat from the early 80's. Its bright red hull and racing history seem to have overshadowed some of the areas of the ship that were lacking a bit more in condition. Nineteen passengers cram onto this 65 foot boat with an old skipper named Dave, two crew members both named Johno, and a dishy from France named Vanessa. After motoring out of the marina it becomes apparent that the operation here is a bit substandard, based on the bent railings and the smell of the engine burning oil in the hold. With both sails raised, we set off for our first destination for the night where we will stop for dinner and to sleep. Everything is smooth sailing, and all the passengers are fairly social. Of the 19 passengers, only 4 are girls. There is a group from France, a group from England, a couple kids from Canada, and a few other loners from Italy and Switzerland. The Johnos manage the sails and basic tasks as ordered by the skipper. Big Johno is from Australia and is the experienced crew member and the cook. Little Johno is from New Zealand and is the dive master for the trip and has apparently never sailed before taking a job on board this boat, which he has only been on for 6 weeks. There are some oddities about how the boat is managed, such as having only one jib sheet, but I suppose if you never tack, you don't really need the other rope cluttering the deck. We anchor around dusk and everyone enjoys an evening out on the water and under the stars, eating steaks off the barbecue and drinking whatever they brought before going to bed very early.
August 7
An early rise and some breakfast and we set out for Whitehaven beach. Today the seas are rough and the 30 knot winds give the skipper reason enough to only run with the jib. We are run to the beach via a small inflatable dingy. Another boat, the Tallarook, seems to be following the same route and is part of eh same company, and their dingy also runs people to and from the beach. The crew member that drives the dingy from the Tallarook is not quite as friendly and outgoing as our crew, but he really seems to love motoring around in his little yellow raft. With an odd skull/skeleton tatty on his right shoulder and a thick metal necklace and metal studded belt, he certainly displays the attitude he delivers. Perhaps he just enjoys the opportunity to be captain of his own ship. We hike over the back side of the beach we are ferried too to get to a lookout that overlooks Whitehaven beach on the other side. Its windy and the floating cumulus clouds offer enough occasional shade to pretty much rule out any desire to swim, but just walking on the fine white sand is a unique experience. After some time enjoying the area, we return to the other side and back to our boat and set sail for out next destination. Once again, we are running on only the jib, which is again rigged with only one sheet. The winds seem stronger and the boat seems to barely roll over the ocean swells, which are definitely taller than the height of the deck, but cruising in this kind of conditions makes for a bit more excitement. After a while, big Johno shouts from his post at the bow and points at the water next to the boat. A large pod of dolphins race with the bow, occasionally darting one way or another and jumping out of the water. Most of the passengers flock towards the bow, and so do some of the crew. After a while the skipper apparently was upset over the number of people huddled next to the jib and had trouble communicating with his crew, since little Johno abandoned his post midway on the ship to also go to the bow. The skipper solved this problem by turning the boat perpendicular to the wave, plunging the bow and everyone on it into each on coming swell. It certainly succeeded in dispersing the passengers and getting the attention of the crew. The skipper scolded little Johno and sailing resumed as normal. After a while it came time to turn the boat. The wind was coming from the rear starboard and a left turn was needed. The crew tied on the second jib sheet, now that it was finally needed, and the skipper opted to do a 270 degree tack instead of a jibe. As the boat spun, the crew let out the jib and began cranking in the other jib sheet, only to find that it had come untied. Now the boat is dead in the water with 30 knot winds sending the jib in all different directions. The crew scramble back to the other jib sheet to try and crank it in to begin to fix the situation. They fumble with the sheet, at first wrapping it around the winch the wrong way. When they finally got it on the right way and began cranking it back, the sail and sheet were flailing wildly. The boat is rigged with a front stay between the jib and mast, and a boat hook is attached to the stay in a PVC pipe. The jib sheet wraps itself around the boat hook, bends it in half, yanks it out of its PVC holder, and tosses it overboard like a tentacle on a straw. The Johnos are still winding the winch furiously, with the sheet winding slowly around a horribly disfigured tangle of rope. It was a pretty funny site. Finally the force of the sail beating on the front stay snaps it at the base and cracks the PVC pipe, sending half of the pipe launching off the boat. Now that the crew have thoroughly lost control of the boat, the skipper orders the passengers into the hold below for our safety while they deal with their mess. The 19 of us sit down in the hold, which is full of fumes from the diesel engine that has been running, and sit patiently waiting. Eventually they fix the problem and we are allowed back up. Its lunch time, but after spending 20 minutes in the hold in heavy seas, most people had lost their appetite. Me and Colin from Canada are the only two that go into the hold and begin chowing down on the hot dogs, pasta, and salad without hesitance as the boat continues to rock over the swells. Eventually we get to our next destination in a cove where we get to do our first dive (which turns out to be the only dive). I am in with the certified diver group with Ryan, the two Canadians, one of the French kids, and a dive master and two passengers from the Tallarook. The rest of the passengers get filed along to do introductory dives after us. We suit up, but most of our equipment seems heavily used. Some people have difficulty with their gauges, but eventually we find seemingly functioning rigs. For the first time, I am covered head to tow, with a hood, gloves, and full body stinger suit. Unfortunately, for the first time, I don't have a wet suit. The stinger suit offers protection from jellyfish, but little protection from the cold. We begin our dive and begin cruising through a complex topography of canyons and walls. My primary second stage regulator starts letting in water right away and I'm forced to use the secondary regulator, which is fine, but shouldn't happen. Apart from the faulty equipment and lack of insulation in cold water, the dive is great. We surface after 35 minutes and go to a beach nearby where the passengers are either relaxing and sun bathing or are being filed into their groups for their intro dives. The skull tattooed dingy driver from the Tallarook seems to be ordering people around into their groups. His primary job is transporting people in his little yellow dingy, and damned if he is going to let a couple of tourists slow him down. We wait on the beach warming up from the cold dive while they go through the groups of intro divers and eventually transport us back to our boats. The original plan is to sail to another place before dinner, but because of the wind and waves, plans are changed and we stay here for the night. At sunset big Johno spots an eagle circling above. He seems to have some experience with the birds, and begins waving a peace of raw meat in the air and whistling to his best efforts. He tosses the meat out into the water as the eagle nears. A few attempts yield a hesitant response, but the last toss sends the eagle diving towards the water and swooping up the slab of meat. The rest of the night is another nice night of socializing and eating pot roast, though the wind sends most of us into the hold.
August 8
Since the change in plans, our last day of sailing has to make up for lost ground. We spend part of the morning at a Butterfly Bay, but the rest of it is sailing back to Airlie Beach. The wind is still ferocious and the seas are still heavy. Most of those on deck are consistently soaked by waves washing over the port, but I manage to get a shielded position on the starboard side of the mast where I can remain dry and laugh as Ryan and Rory and Jon get more wet with each wave. We arrive in Airlie Beach about an hour late, but still have plenty of time to gather our things and meet back up with Scott (who didn't do much of anything over the past two days, and loved every minute of it) before our flight back to Sydney. We arrive in Sydney and ride to the Pink House, our hostile in Kingscross and get an early night.
August 9
Our day begins walking in towards the city center. We walk along the bays edge towards the opera house. The opera house and the harbor bridge really are the focal point of the city. I'd say more than half of my photos in Sydney were taken of the opera house and the bridge. The guys plan to spend the afternoon at the aquarium, but after all the diving I've done, I'd rather spend my time in Sydney seeing other things. I read of an architecture walk in our Lonely Planet guide, but I just barely missed the one for that day and there were no more scheduled for my time in Sydney. Fortunately I had arrived in Sydney during a design festival, and went to the Powerhouse Museum to see their temporary exhibits on architecture, furniture, industrial design, and graphic art. I spent the remainder of the day touring various areas of the city and eventually wandered back to the opera house and back along the harbor's edge towards the hostile, catching the opera house and bridge in all their glory at sunset. I purchased some potatoes, broccoli, a bottle of cheap pinot noir, and a hunk of kangaroo steak to grill back at the hostile. A fine tasting kangaroo it was.
August 10
Scott and Rory are miserably useless in the morning, so Jon and Ryan and I leave them and catch a subway ride to Bondi beach. Spending the morning walking the cliffs along the ocean was an excellent way to begin our last day. The wind was even more fierce here than it was in the Whitsundays, and the waves slammed against the rocks below with such force, we could feel the sea spray hundreds of feet away. We walked all over the Bondi area and eventually headed back into the city to meet back with Rory and Scott. We toured The Rocks for a while, stopped for a drink at the Fortune of War, reputed as Sydney's oldest pub, and continued up past the bridge. Jon and I stopped for a photo op of the bridge, and managed to lose Ryan, Rory and Scott in the process. Jon and I looked around and decided to make the best of our day and meet up with the other guys later. We walked the harbor bridge, got some nice photos, and made our way back to Kingscross. We spent the evening out with the other hostile members at The World Bar, which offered such deals as free pitchers with our large group, buy one get one free drinks before ten, and $7.50 jugs of Victoria Bitter before midnight. We met some local and not-so-local aussies and reminisced about the trip.
August 11
The longest day of my life. We wake up at 6:30 am on the 11 of august to go to the airport. Our flight is slightly complicated by the recent terrorist attempt in Britain, but its no problem to shove our liquids into our checked baggage. Our travel time is close to 24 hours between our first 6 our flight into Tahiti and our second 12 hours flight fall behind schedule. We go through night and day again before arriving in New York on the same day, only 7 hours after we took off. Pretty strange. The trip is over, now its time to deal with the jet lag and get back to the boring reality of home. I think this is it for the blog, not enough happens around here to make for particularly interesting reading. Later.
posted by James Dixon at 8:54 PM
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