Sailing & Diving the GBR

So we had a 4-day long weekend for Easter. The Australians do it right, they take Good Friday and Easter Monday off even though general secularism is increasing in Australia. Anyways, I flew up to Cairns with a friend from work Thursday after work, overnighted at the Hilton overlooking the marina, and then boarded our boat at 8am Friday.

Here is our sailing vessel, the Santa Maria, built in the tradition of Caribbean rum runners from the 1800's. It was actually built in 1982 by a father-son combination in New Caledonia.

Here she is in action:

Here she is at meal time (with me sucking in my gut):

And then the diving began. We did 8 dives in the 3 days were aboard, including another night dive. Overall, the visibility was great and I think the highlight for me were the 3 sharks we saw as well as the interesting shapes, cracks, nooks, and crannies of the bommies we explored along the Great Barrier Reef. I still think Sharm El Sheik in the Red Sea was the best diving I've done to date the GBR that I've seen so far is impressive, although I can't claim to have seen the best it has to offer. Here are some underwater pics our dive master took along the way.

At one point we dove/swam through a massive "android" colony... they sort of look like jelly fish but are totally harmless. But there were so many of them it was like swimming into that jello dessert with the fruit suspended in it, whatever that's called.

At night, after dinner, we delved into the cask wine. We even had an official blind taste testing to see who could identify the various brands. The shirtless Swede won this round...

We arrived back in Cairns Sunday arvo, showered up, then joined the crew for 2 for 1 happy hour at a joint on the marina. From there we headed to the Woolshed for some (in)famous $8 steaks. After dinner the Woolshed turns into a full-on casual/backpacker'esque club complete with dancing on the tables and bars, of which I participated gleefully and thankfully there is no pictorial evidence.

I sort of wish we went here though... anywhere that advertises Beer, Steak, and Good Times is tops in my books.

The next day (Easter Monday) we bumbed around the town before our flight back to Brissie. Eventually ended up at the mall and were delighted to stumble upon Melville's Farm petting zoo with some funky ass chickens.

And how better to close out a weekend of diving and sailing than with an eight minute go on the mall's ever popular massage chairs? Good times. Erin appears to enjoying the massage chair a little too much...

Some more hawaii pics

Finally downloaded pics from my camera... I'm a bad blogger. A blagger if you will. In no particular order...

My mom on the tee:
Me. You gotta look your best on the course, especially if you're going to stink it up.

Northern tip of the big island, black sand beach with waves crashing... no one is surfing!

Me licking a coffee bean at a plantation:

If I gave you a bag of coffee from my trip, this is where it came from:

Lava flow into the sea, from a couple hundred years ago, or thousand, who knows...

My Aunt preparing to chip on:

#1:

View of lava from the course... many a ball in there:

Sailing, part duex

Easter weekend and I'm on my way to cairns for another sailing and scuba diving trip! This time to the heart of the Great Barrier Reef to see what it's cracked up to be. To get to the root of the hype. I'm going to try to use the word root more as my Aussie readers really like this it. Lesson learned from the last trip: take and use zinc for your nose and lips.



-- Post From My iPhone

Stand by your man

Saw this at the travel doctor today while gettiing topped on vaccinations and HIV tests for a PNG work permit.


-- Post From My iPhone

Sailing

This weekend I flee to airlie beach to join Derek and Travis for a three day sailing trip. It was on a 60' sailing yacht that had supposedly won the Sydney to Hobart race in the late 80's. But it was the three of us, four crew members, and twenty three others this time, so no records were broke. The days were filled with beaches, diving, snorkelling, sailing, and general lazing on the deck. I didn't take any pics, but here a photo of me sitting on the grass at the airport waiting to board.


-- Post From My iPhone

Hawaii Pics

As most of my avid readers know I met my mom "half-way" for a vacation in Hawaii for a couple of weeks. From BNE to SYD to HNO to KNA, Kona, where we stayed with my Aunt & Uncle in a condo they rented for their 5 week stay. Here's the view from the patio.
My Aunt and Uncle at the Kona Brewing Company for dinner:

My backseat companions from the Kona Brewing company:

Hi-def map of Kona, we stayed right there, drove up there, and saw volancoes over there.

My field of vision for most of the trip:

Volcano:

Mom & Frank playing I-spy:

Mom and Frank at a lava tube, with some cheddar iPhone photo enhancement:

Volcano, with similar chedder iPhone enhancement:

Black sand beach on the south end of the island:

Feet in black sand:

Mom & Frank at Bubba Gump's:

Pot-o-shrimp from Bubba Gump's... they had grilled shrimp, garlic shrimp, fried shrimp, popcorn shrimp, jumbo shrimp, shrimp pizza, shrimp gumbo, shrimp on a stick... you get the point:

Sunset from Kailoa:

Everyone else went back to Canada on a Thursday, and I flew to Honolulu for 2 nights. Here's Waikiki at night when I arrived... I stayed on the 33rd floor of the Hyatt right on Waikiki beach:

During the day, Diamond Head in the background:

Surfer's on the long, slow, and steady Waikiki surf:

Waikiki shopping district:

I have more pics on my camera (these are iPhone) so I'll hopefully get some more up in the next couple of...