The Diveblog

Day 8 - Lizard Island and back to Cairns

This boat itinerary is a one way trip that ends at Lizard Island.  From here we get a low level flight along the reef back to Cairns.  I have photos (yes there are big monitor lizards on "lizard island") but was unable to get them downloaded to the computer in time.  The flight (between 400 and 800 feet) was great and the pilot would circle around a point of interest for us, if asked.  Unfortunately the plane's windows were filthy, so the photos aren't good.

My half day in Cairns has been spent doing laundry, chasing down a replacement part for the strobe (it broke....remember?), and hitting the internet cafe.  Tomorrow morning, I am being picked up by these guys at 6:30am to go whitewater rafting down the Tully River.  From there, its on to the Spoilsport for the Coral Sea portion of my diving.  No more posts until next Wednesday.

Day 7 - Ribbon Reef #10 and Cod Hole

Oh, I forgot to highlight the coolest rare find on Pixies Pinnacle.....the lacy scorpionfish.  This fish kept hiding deeper and deeper in a hole, so the best I could do was a profiled head shot:

Trust me...its a fish!  Just look for the eye in the middle of the photo.

The first dive of this final day of diving (from this boat) was on Pixie Gardens (thus completing the Pixie trifecta!).  I was rewarded with the following two photo opportunities.  First, the leafy scorpionfish (about three inches long):

The second "money shot" was this photo of a lazy puffer resting on the bottom.  This one won me the boat's photo contest.

The second dive site of the day was Lighthouse Bommie. Lots of great stuff, but this hawkfish hiding in some soft coral was the rarity of the dive:

Finally, we got in two dives on the "world famous" Cod Hole.  The only problem is.....the cod didn't show up.  For over 20 years, dive operators would feed this family of GIGANTIC codfish.....thus creating the perfect photo op.  However, the feedings stopped a couple of years ago.  Therefore, the cod only come out if they feel like it.  Today, they didn't.  Great dive anyway.  Saw the first shark of the trip and although it wasn't the advertised "experience", I found a cod hanging out under a ledge (this guy was as big as me):

And as ugly....

After the last dive, we had an aussie barbecue on the sun deck.  A nice end to a fantastic charter.  Due to maintenance costs, Mike Ball is retiring the Supersport after March.  The boat may be a little "tired", but she served us well as a home for three days.

Gotta clean and pack up the gear.......excuse me........

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Day 6 - Ribbon Reef #10

Woke up to the sound of the boat moving to the first dive site, Pixie Wall.  The boat overnights in sheltered areas, but away from the reef.  If the mooring comes loose at night, you want to be as far from the reef as possible!  Coral heaven! 

Dives two and three were at Pixies Pinnacle, which rises up from the sand approximately a quarter mile from Pixie Wall (the GBR is a hell of a navigation hazard....all these reefs rise to a couple of feet from the surface).  This site was full of invertebrate life, like this nudibranch:

This is also where I shot my first lionfish.

Dives 4 and 5 were at Challenger Bay.  The night dive photography on this site was a challenge, because the predator fish (bass and trevally) have learned that dive lights=dinner.  Everytime you light up something yummy, these guys come bolting in.  The problem is that they interrupt everything.  Its a miracle I got this shot of a moray eel, because three seconds later, the bass was in the picture.

The bass:

Another great day!  A couple more photos in the continuation.

Day 5 - First Day on the Supersport

Met the boat at Cairns harbor around 8:00 last night.  The crew met us with champagne and we proceeded with a bunch of briefings (boat tour and safety briefing, dive procedures briefing, photo services, etc).  The boat was only half full, so I got a cabin to myself....sweet. 

Overnight, we rode approximately 80-90 miles to our first dive site at Ribbon Reef #3.  I slept like a baby, but some of my fellow passengers had a restless evening.

Woke up early to set up the camera gear and discovered that one of my strobes wouldn't power up.  One of the battery terminals on the battery compartment seal had snapped off.  Great!  However, just as it seemed that I was down to one flash, the trip director came to the rescue with the back off his own strobe.  Fantastic!

First Dive - Flare Point

The first dive of any trip is usually an opportunity for the crew to evaluate the skills of the divers.  Therefore, its usually an easy shallow dive.  Flare Point is a classic example of this.....shallow, sandy bottom and a so-so dive site.  But I didn't care!  Blessed weightlessness and finally soaring among the coral heads.  Life couldn't be better.  I was very rusty with the camera, but look!  I found Nemo....

Dives 2 and 3 were on Steve's Bommie.  A Bommie is simply what we americans call a coral head.  Just an isolated mound of coral.  What a site!  Its a small area, so the crew has us going clockwise around the site to keep from smashing into one another.  Already, some of my fellow divers are skipping dives.  C'mon!  Its day one!  This place is crawling with small critters, like this 4 inch pipefish:

Dives 4 and 5 were on the dive site called, Clam Beds.  I'll give you one guess what the star attraction is.........right!  Giant clams:

These things were HUGE.  2-4 feet long.

Ahh.  The end of a very satisfying day of diving.  The crew is pretty laid back with the seasoned divers, but jump in as a "guide" for the folks with less experience.  The check-in and check-out procedures are very thorough and every diver who didn't own one already was issued a signal tube.

All my fellow passengers were in bed by 9:30........lame group.  Click on the continuation to see a few more photos.

Day 4 - Goodbye Sydney, Hello Cairns (briefly)

I'm now sitting in an internet cafe (this one) in Cairns and waiting to catch my dive boat.  Reflecting back on my time in Sydney, I have a few observations:

• The people in Sydney are awesome.  More friendly and laid back than just about any city I've ever been in.
• You've got to love a country that has not one..not two..but three distinct types of football.  And I'm not counting futbol.  I mean FOOTBALL, where large men chase around an oblong ball and knock the CRAP out of each other.  The AFL (aussie rules football) Grand Final is this weekend and pits the Sydney Swans against the West Coast Eagles.  The National Rugby League (the blue-collar, pro version of rugby with different rules than the more well known rugby union) semi-finals are this weekend.  And the Rugby Union club playoffs are in full swing right now.  No pads either.  And I love the attitude of these leagues.  As an example, the Swans' star fullback was suspended for two games by the league for punching an opponent (away from the ball) during the semifinals (what? that's illegal?).  In his tribunal appeal, the suspension was reduced to one game because his team argued "Barry Hall was trying to put himself into the play, both before, after and during the incident....We submit that there was every chance that Barry Hall was going to be involved in the next passage of play."  And since he "pleaded guilty" prior to the tribunal....the suspension was reduced to a reprimand.  So let me get this right.....the punch occurred in the course of play because Barry THOUGHT the ball MIGHT come to him.....and since he admitted it, he gets to play.  COOL!  Love it!
• Oh, they have futbol too, but who cares ;-}
• The rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne is INTENSE.
• The bars in Sydney are called "Hotels" and may, or may not, have rooms for rent.
• The club scene here is a little pretentious for me.  Modern kitsch.  I definitely didn't fit in with jeans.
• The asian ethnic food here is outstanding.  Lots of great thai, indian, chinese, and japanese.  However, all the takeout sushi places serve NO raw fish.  The salmon is all smoked, the shrimp is cooked and the friggin tuna is from a can!  That's just wrong!
• They have a serious graffitti problem.
• Its a very "white" town (I'm including asians here).  I saw two aboriginals in three days.  One was a panhandler.  The other was making a fortune from the tourists playing a didgeridoo and posing for photos (he was pretty good, too).
• Kings Cross is one of the most pathetic red light districts I have ever seen (ummm.....not that I've been to many........ummmm......I mean.......ummmm........never mind).
• Getting around is pretty easy between the buses, trains and ferries.  All for A$15 per day.

Despite my best efforts (evidenced by the blisters on my feet), there is sooo much of Sydney that I haven't seen, yet.  I'll definitely have to come back.  Its a fun town.

I'm now sitting in Cairns and will shortly be getting on the dive boat.  Therefore, I will not be posting again until Monday.

G'day mates

Day 3 - Manly Beach

I also took the ferry to Manly Beach to check out the beach scene around Sydney.  The sign at the ferry terminal says "Manly - seven miles from Sydney, a thousand miles from care".  Cool!  Wait a minute.....what happened to the metric system?  My whole time here they've been confusing me with kilometers, celsius, liters, etc!  Shouldn't it be "2 thousand kilometers from Sydney, a trillion kilometers from care?"  Where did this "seven miles" come from?  That's the problem with the metric system.....it ruins catchy slogans.  Gas costs A$1.38 per liter (sorry....litre).  I think thats around $15 US per gallon.  Well, that might be off...all I know is that people are bitchin' about it all the time and used four cylinder cars are fetching a premium over six cylinders, right now. 

How I do ramble.  Here's the beach....very picturesque.

One of the reasons I came out was to see if the surfing scene lived up to its reputation.  Well, there definitely were a lot of people surfing.......most just sucked.  Now I have no place to be critical.....I tried surfing once and got a bloody nose when the board hit me in the face.  And that was on a 2 foot wave (sorry....67 centimeters).

Oy, how's the surf mate?  (apparently, they spell "yo" backwards here and "mate" is aussie for "dude").

Tested out the telephoto lens and got some cool surfing shots.  Unfortunately, the sun was in my face and so all I could get were silhouettes.

  Gratuitous butt shot for the ladies!

Now this guy could SURF!

Unfortunately, this guy couldn't.......

Oy......something's wrong here........MOMMY!.......

It was a nice break from the city.

Day 3 - Random Wandering

Here in Australia, they call this walkabout.  However, given the current condition of my feet, I'll need to amend it to limpabout.  I don't have time for any commentary, so I'll just put up the pictures and save the writing for later.

Day 2 - Sydney Aquarium

So you may be wondering......"Why the hell is he going to Sydney Aquarium when he's about to spend two weeks diving the Great Barrier Reef?"

1. I like aquariums
2. Call it research.  This one has all the little aquatic australian nasties that can hurt me (there are lots of them too!) and I want to know what they look like.  Unfortunately, the lighting sucked and I couldn't get any decent shots of them.

They have a couple of these glass tunnels so you can walk through the tanks.  You know....these:

This one is from the seal tank.  Wait a minute.........where are the seals?  Tap, tap, tap......hello?  Anyone home?

Whoosh!

Wow!  That seal is fast!  I must have burned half a gig and only got a couple of usable photos.  Here's the other one.....in silhouette:

Cue the spooky Jaws theme......Da dum.........Da dum..........etc:

Don't worry.  Different tank than the seals.

Actually, that would be pretty cool!  Shark week live!  Anyway, the aquarium was just average.  I find that it pales in comparison to Baltimore, Monterrey and New Orleans (oops, maybe not anymore).

Day 2 - Finding Roos and Koalas

I'm on my second day in Sydney and still haven't seen a kangaroo or koala!  What's up with that?  I thought the roos would be bouncing through the streets and the koalas would be clinging to the buildings.  Geez, next thing you know someone will tell me I can't see Uluru (aka Ayer's Rock) from the Sydney Tower.  Talk about blown expectations ;-}

So I decided to pack up the camera gear and head to the wilds of Sydney (otherwise known as "the suburbs") in search of the elusive kangaroo and koala.  My destination.....Featherdale Wildlife Park.  Why there instead of the Taronga Zoo?  Because I didn't come to Australia to see lions and tigers and bears (oh my).

Eureka!  I think I found them.....

and.....

But there was much, much more.......

Kookaburras

An albino roo (or wallaby...I can't tell the difference)

Speaking of albinos.......

TAZ!

Wombats (kinda reminds me of a nutria.....except cuter)

Fairy Penguins (from Tasmania)

They even had a saltie there (saltwater crocodile).  Where's Steve Irwin when you need him?  This guy was HUGE!  (well, I didn't exactly get close enough to check, so it could be female)

And then this handsome fellow just kept posing for the camera....

Whew!  Not bad for a Tuesday morning (I think...its...Tuesday...).  And now, on to the Sydney Aquarium.....

Day 1 - Botanical Gardens Walkabout

In my jetlagged daze, I wandered into the Sydney Botanical Gardens and saw this sign:

Thats refreshing.  Okay, well.......sssnnniiiiiiiifffffffff....

cough! cough! achoo!.  Hmmmm, that wasn't very pleasant.  What was next on the list?  Oh yeah...here's a tree in need of a hug.  This little flower was the ONLY thing growing from this tree (no leaves...really!):

A little thorny, but Maybe the hug helped.....and lastly.....

Um Mr. Ibis?  Excuse me......how's it feel to be Australia's pest bird, similar to the canada goose in the USA?  Any comment?

OW! My eye!