In the last couple of days I have been mistaken for a canadian. not once, but twice actually. The first time might have been an accident, but when it happens more than once it is not a coincidence
anymore. I thanked the last guy, and took it as a compliment. He obviously thought my english was good.

His reply was:"and in what world would it be a compliment being mistaken for a canadian, mate?"
hehe…

Yesterday we watched the movie "Blood Diamond" with Leonardo in one of the leading roles. I must say that I was very impressed by him, not to mention the movie itself. After "The Departed" and this one Leonardo De Caprio is proving to be a pretty good actor. I think the movie is a really good one, so if you haven't seen it I urge you to go and do so. the violence and the whole setting was just gruesome, and it really showed how little a life can be worth. And just like every decent movie with Leo, he dies at the end. sorry to ruin it for those of you who haven't seen it.

Tonight I will be attending a party thrown by my brothers classmates. My brother will unfortunately not take part because
of his competition on sunday, and also because he would rather go to the movies with his girlfriend than come drinking
with his older brother. go figure.

Before the party I need to take the bike and go over to the australian equivalent of NAF, RAAA – Royal Australian Automobile Association, and book a motorhome for when my dad arrives next week.
They close in about an hour, so I need to get going.

have a good one.

Oh yeah! another thing. I checked my bank account and Padi Pacific has now deducted the certification fee and the exam fee. That means that I will soon have all the necessary paperwork in order. after I receive a confimation email I will be able to teach diving courses down here. I must admit that I am looking forward to that.

I have worked out alot more during the last three days than I have done in the last two months. It all started on monday when I joined Björn to his judo practice.

The dojo is situated at Flinders University, where he studies, and it is approximately 7 km from his house. we used bicycles to get there (thanks to Tor for lending me his bike) so we were all warmed up and ready to go when we got there. On the way there we halfway raced with the bus, a couple of other cyclists and off course each other. The judo practice was a lot of fun. it always is entertaining to wrestle and playfight. it was also really cool to see my brothers progress from the last time I saw his fighting skills. The coach has actually decided to award Björn with an orange belt, even though he has only practiced judo for about two months.
Normally people have to practice for about seven to eight months before getting that far. I guess years of Sundelin Martial Arts has been a good preperation for him. hehe..

He has got a really good combination that might work very well for him. first he tries a leg sweep (O Uchi Gari) and then he changes direction and goes for a shoulder throw  (drop seio nage) instead. He is also quick, strong and very agile. His opponents on sunday will not get an easy match.
after practice we biked home again. 

Tuesday morning we got out of bed at around eight and went directly down to the beach for a little run. We ran up to Brighton jetty and back, and we also did a bunch of pushups. for some reason we always end up doing ridicilously amounts of pushups when we brothers meet. be it cardgames, bets, or just plain I-can-do-more-than-you-can attitude. this time we agreed that we would do five pushups for each dog we ran past on the beach. It seemed like the entire suburb of Brighton was out walking their dogs, so we ended up doing somewhere between 80 and 100 pushups.

Later that day we went down to the local baitstore and bought a crabtrab, some bait, and some rope. after dark we all went down to the pier and threw the entire thing over the side, opened up a can of beer and waited. after about 3 minutes the wind picked up, and pretty soon all the other people on the pier had left. there were only two guys left and they both dressed like they were going to the south pole with gore-tex, balaclaca and the lot. We scandinavians only wore tshirt and shorts off course. We checked the trap every now and then, but there were no crabs. One of the other fishermen caught a squid by the way.

It is not as huge as it seems on the picture. it was probably somewhere around 30-40 centimeters long. it tried to crawl away but the fisherman quickly killed it with a judo chop.

The wind picked up some more and large waves started to hammer down on the pier, and it also started to rain. we had ran out of beer, and got pretty much tired of sitting outside all exposed to the weather. Then  I saw a shimmering warming light in the distance. It was the gentle lights from a bar right next to the pier. After a small discussion, maybe 3 seconds, we decided to leave the trap in the water and go for a beer. 
It sure was alot more confortable sitting inside sipping on a pint of beer compared to beeing outside in the wind and rain totally without beer.

This is how you should fish  crabs! 🙂 after a beer or two we all went out and checked our trap, but we didn't catch a single crab. bummer. one of the fishermen on the pier actually gave us one of his crabs, cause he caught too many anyway. Blue swimming crab is the species, and they are absolutely huge. We've got swimming crabs back home in norway as well, but they are tiny in comparison to this one.

we got home, cooked it, and had it for breakfast the next morning.
wedensday I biked all around the suburb collecting information about rental cars, renting a motorhome, accomodation and other information that will be useful when Tomas and dad get down here next week. I covered about 20 km doing that, and then after dinner Björn and I went to judo practice again. so totally I biked about 35 km yesterday. we also did quite alot of ground fighting at practice, and I sure can feel all the exercise today.

🙂

There has been some problems with posting pictures for a while, but I am now finally able to get them online again. I know quite a few of you have been buggering me for a long time now.It's been every thing from "lets see some diving  pictures" to  "come on Klas! show us some nekkid aussie ass!".

 
This first one is of "Fozzy", the captain from the live-aboard trip I went to. He was a very relaxed skipper as I am sure you can tell.

This is from Ayr, where I dove the Yongala. Excellent wreck and I would love diving there again. did I mention that one of the instructors where followed by a bull shark as they launched the boat?

Here are the guys I did my Instructors Exam with. In the middle we have Mike Hayes the examiner, an ex-kiwi now settled in Cairns. He also teaching how to fly planes in addition to being a dive instructor. The guy with the cap on is Seven. yes. that is his name, and his only name. he does not have a family name. don't ask me why. He shears sheep for a living and earn as much money working 5 months a year as most people does during an entire year. I believe his record is more than 400 sheep in one day. The guy in the green shirt is Raymond, and he is a tree surgeon. He cuts down trees that are too big for most people to cut down them selves. he uses climbing gear and huuuge 
chain saws, and also makes a fair deal of money. both Seven and Raymond travel all around the world with their job. The guy in the top left of the picture is Codi, and was forced to do his instructors course by his dad. His dad own the largest resort on Hamilton Island not far from Airly Beach.  It is probably not a surprise to find out that Codi is quite spoiled.

This is off course yours truly. I am quite happy after passing the exam and look forward to my next adventure here Down Under

alright. the last couple of days have been really great. I flew in here thursday afternoon, and I have pretty much been relaxing since then. oh yeah, we went into Glenelg on saturday and we also went to a birthday party saturday night.

Glenelg is one of the suburbs here in Adelaide, and Björn and I biked up there saturday afternoon. we first went to the local dive center and got to know all about the local diving. they have a mix of coral reefs and kelp 
apperantly, but the reefs here don't grow to the same size as on the northern side. The temperature is also alot colder than
up in Cairns. Up there we dove in waters that were up to 29 degrees centigrade, but down here they usually stay between 15 and 24 degrees. The biggest difference in the diving here and other places I have been is that they actually have to take precations against the great white shark. They were something called The Shark Pod, which creates an electric field arround the diver. this electric field is unbarable to sharks, and they will not come close to a diver wearing one of them. They also use a larger model on the boat to keep the sharks away from that as well.

After the dive shop I got my hair cut at a local barber shop. nothing much to tell about it really. What I do need to tell you about is the Rodney Fox Shark Experience. Its a local shark museum dedicated to educate people about sharks and also promote trips. you can actually scuba dive with great whites from the safety of a steel cage with this company. pretty awesome stuff. the down side is that it costs from 1500 dollars an up (approx 7500 kr) , and that is way out of my league. Maybe I will be able to do that in a couple of months time when I have worked a bit, but not now.

One of the girls in Björns class had her birthday party saturday night. It was a fun party, but it was weird talking alot of norwegian again. I have mostly been speaking english the last couple of weeks. We met alot of cool people and had a few party games. after a couple of hours Björn and I stumbled home and made a late night snack. it was a good evening. 

Björn studies to become a nurse here in Adelaide, and they learn all about our bodies, and the physiology and so on. I was therefore very supprised when I realized that most of them smokes even though these people must know alot more about our health than most other people. Yet they still choose to smoke. How does that really work out? there are probably like 80 % smokers among the nurse students. its totally crazy if you ask me.  They know all about the dangers and how totally stupid it is, but they still do it. it really proves that when you're first addicted to
that crap you really have no real 
choice  ymore. 
The only difference between the smokers and the drug addicts is that tobacco is legal and cocaine is not. yeah yeah I know that the effects on the mind are alot different, but I am talking about the addiction it self.

oh well… with that off my chest I can continue.

sunday was just a slow day. everybody was tired and hung over after the party. we went  down to the beach with a couple of Björns fellow students. the beach is about 250 meters away from his house. I brought my frisbee with me and we all threw that around for a while. I went for a quick swim , but I couldn't really 
relax much knowing that great whites inhabit these waters. and since we were the only people in the water we would attract a fair amount of attention. The locals say that the beach is a fairly safe area since it's very shallow and there is not a seal colony nearby for miles. with that said there has been about one attack every year in this area.  my swim was therefore only a very short one. 

Today Björn and I went to judo practice. it is always alot of fun to wrestle and to play fight and this practise was no different. My brother has recently joined the local club and is actually going to take part in his first competition on this 
coming sunday. He is quick, agile and very strong and because of all the wrestling back home he is also a fast learner when it comes to things like this. even though he has only practiced judo for a couple of months in Norway before coming here, the coach here will upgrade him straight to an orange belt. He said he is doing it because Björn has that level of skill. I participated in this practice as well and it was a very good practice. I am looking forward to the practice on wedensday and not to mention the competition on sunday. Björn is actually the only participant from the club. no one else is entering, and I find that strange. back home we were always a group attending the competitions. oh well.. I guess these aussies are just a bunch of wankers. I am confident that Björn will beat up a couple of them. hehe…

Tuesday night was spent drinking with Troy, a local guy from Brisbane. He's a really cool guy who I met up in Airly Beach. I have probably already mentioned that. anyway. we went out on tuesday night, and started at a backpacker bar called "Birdie Num Num". A really cool place with a pool table, two bars, a dance floor and their own pool. we hung out and played some pool while we got drunk. which was nice.  He doesn't drink beer however. which is kind of weird, beeing australian and all. The only thing he drank was scotch and lemonade. (yes I know you'll get upset Kristoffer). me on the other side had beers, scotch, vodka and red bull and I also tried the scotch and lemonade. I must say that it wasn't all bad.

After a couple of hours we left for Down Under Bar, which is a nightclub for students and backpackers in Brisbane. The place was rocking when we got there, and the guys were outnumbered by the girls with something like three to one. It sure was a nice place.

We ended up on the dance floor and I ran into some japanese girls. and I almost got smacked by their male friends (also japanese). I was just dancing and one of the japanese girls came towards me, so I danced even closer. When I tried to put my arms around her she giggled and screamed loudly with a huge smile on her face, while she jumped back. she was appearently embarassed or something. Some time later the other japanese girl came a little closer while the Dj was playing an old rock 'n roll song from the 50's. I figured it was a good opportunity to dance some old school swing and grabbed her hands. she didn't jump away like the first one did, but played a long. Not even 15 seconds later one of her male friends came along and squeezed himself in between and pulled her away while he showed us both that he wasn't happy with the situation at all. Appearently it wasn't appropriate by her to dance with me or something.

we had more drinks, more fun, and when the place closed we all left for McDonalds for some late night food. Troy tried to buy sex from the girl behind the counter and for some strange reason she didn't like it. she looked like she would call the cops on us or something. hehe…

after a short taxi I was back at the hostel and went to bed. wedensday was spent on the south bank, which is an area of Brisbane with museums, restaurants, and a large lagoon among other things. I played some frisbee with some people from my hostel and we all enjoyed the sun and the girls in bikinis. After a couple of hours we returned to the hostel again. the rest of the people there got drunk during the evening but I had an evening without alcohol for a change. It was a little strange but good. I might try that again some time. 

Thursday I got up early and went to the airport because I was really anxious to see Björn again. I got to the airport something like four hours before my flight left. a watched the movie "Red Sonja" on my laptop to kill some time and I must say that Arnold is a pretty funny guy. I mean who else would say: "prepare to be conquered!" to a women he is about to put his ding-dong in to. hehe….

I got to Adelaide, met my brother and went to his place. he shares a house with three other norwegian guys. they all go to the same school and knew each other back in norway.

Tonight we'll go and catch a movie and tomorrow there's a party here. I look forward to that. Maybe I can get them to play rose. that would be good. haven't played in about three weeks now.

I have now been down under in Australia for two weeks and I have noticed a couple of things. First of all my facial hair grows like crazy down here. I seriously need to shave every day while back home I could get by with once every three days. for those of you who have seen my hair growth in general I can happily inform you that this increase in growth only applies to my face.  hehe…

The second thing I have noticed down here is that I don't get half as hung over here as I do back home. It could be that the general consumtion has increased, or maybe the aussie's water down the drinks. either way I can go out drinking from seven 'til three o'clock and I will wake up at ten the next morning feeling quite alright.

The third thing I have noticed is that there are more canadians and english people down here than there are australians. There are also quite alot of scandinavians around. I guess the shitty weather back home inspires us all to come here. I have now met so many canadians that I am starting to be able to seperate them from the americans.

you know what I mean, eh?
😀

Today I came into Brisbane after a mere 18 hour busride. It went by pretty fast really and wasn't half as bad as I had anticipated. I first went to a hostel named Brisbane City Backpackers, but they were full, so now I am at another one. tonight I will go out for a couple of beers with Troy, a guy I met up in Airly Beach a couple of days ago. 

Still need to know what y'all want to read about.

Tonight I will get on a greyhound bus and leave Airlie Beach. I am done with my exam and will now continue south to Brisbane. even though I am used to traveling I am not really looking forward to an 18 hour busride. That's gonna be a real pain in the ass. for real. the good news is that I will be hooking up with a guy named Troy down there, and we will go for a beer somewhere. wedensday I think I'll just relax and take a look at the city and thursday I will continue to Adelaide. this time by plane.

you guys reading this seem to have lost interest in leaving a comment or two. I wonder if the lack of stories about diving, drinking and nudity is to blame. what do you think?

what do you want to read about?

I did end up at a foam party the other night. by total accident I assure you.  I was out drinking with some people from my hostel and one thing led to another and suddenly we were at a bar where they had a covered the dance floor with a layer of foam about 1,2 meters thick. at first I was a bit apprehensive, but I quickly lost my inhibitions and continued partying. it was alot of fun and afterwards we went down to the lagoon here in Airly Beach to wash off. it turned out that most people from the foam party had the same idea and if it weren't for the fact that we didn't have any more alcohol it would be a great afterparty.

this one girl had her clothes stolen so she was just walking around in string and a bra going:" excuse me? has anyone seen my clothes?"

hehe.. pretty funny stuff. until she tried to steal our clothes. we had to take our clothes back and tell her to get lost.

Have a nice day everyone!

😀

Today we had the last day of exams, and it started bloody early let me tell ya. we got up before the sun today at six a.m. , by crikey. it was a bit difficult because of last night. there might have been a few drinks and even a limbo competition at one of the bars here in Airly Beach. anyway, I got picked up by Cody, another DM doing his IE, and off we went to Abel Marina. a really nice katamaran waited for us there, along with some more people doing a daytrip out to the Whitsunday Islands.

If anyone of you readers ever go to Australia I can really recommend the whitsunday islands to you. there are about 74 islands of different sizes and shapes clustered together outside of Airlie Beach. gorgeous beaches, nice resorts, lots of sailing, and prestine waters.

The daytrippers went off with the diving instructor and the rest of us got ready to finish up on our Instructors Exam. We did some briefings on the boat, got our gear together and jumped in the water. the four of us did two skills each and we switched roles from being the instructor, being the divemaster and being students.

Divewise it was a little strange dive. there was absolutely shitty visibility of maximum 4 meters and a bit of current, so that was kind of familiar to the diving in Norway. the water temperature of about 28-29 degrees and the amount of fish we saw was just spectacular. it was obvious that the fish had been fed in the past because they came right in between us almost begging like dogs at a dinner table. a huge napoleon wrasse also came by to say hello. on one occasion I couldn't really see what the instructor at the time was demonstrating because there were so many fish circling in between. I sure do miss Harriet back home. You better take good care of her, Torkel!

after the skills we surfaced and did a rescue scenario. it basically consisted of finding an unconscious diver at the surface, establish positive buoyancy, starting mouth to mouth, and towing the patient while removing the equipment. 

When the rescue scenario was over we returned to the boat and did some debriefings. and that was it. we were done. The Instructor Examiner then pulled us aside one and one and went through our entire performance at the IE and also finished with :"you passed!" or " sorry mate, you failed.." 

I am very pleased to report that we all passed. yep! I am now a Padi Open Water Scuba Instructor.   
😀   😀   😀

now my vacation starts and I can let my shoulders down. This really made me happy guys. Now I have a working visa holiday, the certificate in order, still got some money in my account. Appearently there are plenty of jobs up in Cairns. I will go there and look for a job after I have been down to Adelaide to visit my brother.

But that's later. Tonight I am going out with the rest of the guys, and we just might get a tiny bit hammered. maybe. possibly…
 Klas will go to bed early, but his evil party twin Sjlasius will emerge after sunset.

"….lambo lambo mine herrer lambo…."

Ohoy there, Sailor!

Today I started on my instructors exam, or IE if you like. It is a two-day exam and it consists of two theory exams, one classroom presentation, one confined water presentation, two open water presentations, a skill circuit consisting of 5 skills, and last but not least a rescue scenario. as you might realize this is quite comprehensive stuff. today I got out of bed at 0645, and for a backpacker (or a student) that is quite early. we started off with the theory exams  which were the most feared subjects among the four of us.

I passed the theory exams with a good margin, and then we went over to the pool demonstrations. since I have been a CMAS instructor for a year, and have been in the pool a couple of times before, it wasn't really too hard. it went pretty alright. the only thing I need to work more at is that I need to slow down. I finish way to early. now doesn't that sound like something I probably have heard before, eh? 😀

anyway.. the classroom presentation went alright, and now I am all set for tomorrow. we will go out to the Great Barrier Reef to to the final parts of the exam there. (The Great Barrier Reef sure beats Nidaroehallen) were gonna do two open water skill demonstrations and then we will finish up with a rescue scenario. I am not too worried about tomorrow, so I think I will be fine.

but now I am off to prepare for tomorrow. then I will get some food, and finally I will get some beer in honor of St. Patricks day.

🙂

yesterday I dove the SS Yongala, and it was the best dive I have done in more than five years of diving. The wreck went down in a cyclone in 1911 and is today the only reef (artificial or not) within miles around. the depths ranges from 15 meters at the top of the wreck down to 28-30 meters at the bottom. it is 109 meters long and is therefore a fairly large structure, but it is difficult to recognize it as a wreck because of the abundance of marine life. there were large schools of Giant Trevallys, barrracudas, batfish snappers, and numerous of other fish. there were also some huge groupers there. they were at least 2 meters long and they just massive. even if I do spearfish back home in norway I wouldn't want to shoot one of those. we also saw a marble ray about the size of a dinner table.

It seemed like the all the fish in the area were much larger than usual. another strange thing was that the fish were not at all afraid of us. they approached us and many of them came 
closer than 1 meter. we could observe lots of cleaning stations, and also some hunting behaviour. at one point I swam through this massive school of small bait fish when suddenly about 10-15 giant trevallys came sweeping in and attacked the bait fish. The baitfish panicked and the giant trevallys picked up the pace and they just raced past me and almost went into a feeding frenzy. It was the coolest thing I have ever seen under water.   The dive center Yongala Dive
(http://www.yongaladive.com.au/) have some nice pictures from the site.