Last tuesday I went bungyjumping with a group of friends from the boat. I have done it before and kind of knew what to expect, but it was still quite scary.

Today it is saturday the 14th of july and it is time for the Triple Treat Adventure. As always we will do one session of snorkling, one session on White Heaven Beach and another session following the walking track up to the lookout. I have done these trips now twice a week for three months (20 + times), and it is becoming routine. But it is not routine anymore.

Last week I was leading a group of people up the walking track when suddenly appeared right next to my bare foot. normally I don't wear shoes anymore because I don't need them anymore. I jumped when I saw the snake and stepped aside. the snake started to slide away but wasn't very alarmed. It wasn't a python because it was to slender for that, but thats about where my snake skills end. Does anyone recognize this fellow?
 

anyways..
Last tuesday I went to a seminar/show about being all you can be. no, it was not staged by the recruiting office from the military. hehe. It was about living up to your potential and the guy hosting it showed us that many times fear stops us well before we really need to. He demonstrated this by breaking boards and getting people to mimic him.

He also put an arrow with the tip to his throat and broke it by walking through it. He then volunteered about six of us up on stage to do the same. And since the rest of the group took a big step back, I was the first to go. which was fine by me.

I put the tip of the arrow to my throat, focused on the eyes of the person supporting the other end of the arrow and took a big breath. I was nervous yes, but I knew I could do it. firstly I had seen that guy do just the same thing, and secondly I knew that he wouldn't get strangers to do things that would be potentially harmful. thirdly I know that I have a high threshold of pain and am able to push myself quite far. especially when my brothers are present. If they are not I can easily put them there mentally. anyway. I took a big breath and walked through the arrow. it split into three pieces and they flew across the room. Pretty cool stuff.

check out the guy's web page.

out.

I have been lagging behind on the updates here, and for that I appologize. It's not like things haven't happened. It's more the other way around. Here are a few of the things I have been up to lately.

Torkel came down here for a visit not long ago. I took him out on a snorkeling trip about an hour after he landed. It was alot of fun to show him my "office", or parts of it anyway. We went out and snorkeled and dived several times during his stay. We also went to the mainland and got drunk in Airlie Beach. We met up with my brother Björn and the fun just increased from there on. We went to Prosepine River and did a Crocodile Safari, which I thought was pretty awesome. I totally agree with the late Steve Irwin in that "Crocs Rule!"

The high light of their visit was an amazing sailing trip we did around the islands. We were part of a group of 11 backpackers and 2 crew as we "sailed" around in the Ragamuffin II. I say "sailing" because we had almost no wind at all during the three days we were out there. we had clear skies both day and night and it was really cool. One of my fondest memories from the trip was laying up on the deck of the sailboat at night time, talking to Björn and Torkel, and just admiring the thousands of stars above us.  I will always treasure that memory.

 
The areas we went to were the same places I go to umpteen times per week, so the trip was more about the company than the destinations really. Both of them have gone from the island now. Björn is back down in Adelaide, and Torkel is on his way north. first for a stay up in Townsville and Cairns and then he will go back to Norway.
I must say that I really appreciated the visit, and they mean so much to me both of them. nuff said. instead of writing more girlietalk I will now show you some of the photos of the mean killer crocodiles. 😀

One of the managers of the dive shop told me an interesting story the other day. It all happened about fifteen years ago at White Haven Beach. An instructor was conducting an introdive for a couple of non-divers in the shallows right off the beach, and he lost sight of one of the introdivers. The general rule in diving when it comes to losing fellow divers in the water is very simple. you search for the missing part for 1 minute. If you don't find the person within that minute you go to the surface and find them there.

The instructor did that but the introdiver didn't surface. after a short while they found the bubbles, and went over there just as the diver surfaced. They asked the woman what happened, and she replied:
" I saw this really cool striped whale, and I was able to follow it for maybe five minutes before it disappeared."

The instructor and the rest of the crew went pale, and told everyone to get out of the water. They were going home imediately.

There is no such thing as striped whales. This is what the woman was following…..
And it must have been a fairly big one, too.

We normally go to White Haven Beach two times a week. but I haven't seen any striped whales yet. 😛

One of the managers of the dive shop told me an interesting story the other day. It all happened about fifteen years ago at White Haven Beach. An instructor was conducting an introdive for a couple of non-divers in the shallows right off the beach, and he lost sight of one of the introdivers. The general rule in diving when it comes to losing fellow divers in the water is very simple. you search for the missing part for 1 minute. If you don't find the person within that minute you go to the surface and find them there.

The instructor did that but the introdiver didn't surface. after a short while they found the bubbles, and went over there just as the diver surfaced. They asked the woman what happened, and she replied:
" I saw this really cool striped whale, and I was able to follow it for maybe five minutes before it disappeared."

The instructor and the rest of the crew went pale, and told everyone to get out of the water. They were going home imediately.

There is no such thing as striped whales. This is what the woman was following…..
And it must have been a fairly big one, too.

We normally go to White Haven Beach two times a week. but haven't seen any striped whal

These islands are named the Whitsunday Islands, but after the last week of weather I truly think they should change the name to Wetsunday Islands. It's been raining , raining and raining.  The temperature has dropped as well, so its bloody cold here the moment. I'm not talking about 23 degrees when it's usually 35. Oh no… It is only about 12 degrees at the moment. and this weekend it's supposed to drop down to below 10. IN THE TROPICS!!!
The weather forecast just said that there has been low temperature records all over Queensland during the last couple of days. The cold weather is caused by some freak winds that originate all the way down in the Antarctic. Where is that global warming everyone are talking about? 

This photo was taken last week outside Popeye's, the local fish 'n chips shop. I had just finished work and noticed that a couple of lorikeets were bothering an old lady. She was just sitting outside trying to enjoy a cup of coffey. The little buggers are cute, but very smart and cunning. The bird was pulling quite hard and the old lady was holding on. her affection for the little flying rat was quickly turned into anger when it wouldn't let go. hehe…

I had today off, and went to the Airlie Beach together with Scott. we caught the first ferry bright and early at seven this morning, and it is all thanks to him. left to myself I would've slept til noon and maybe caught the two'o clock ferry. what can I say? I really like sleeping in.
anyway. First thing I did in Airlie was going to MSQ and got my ROPES book. ROPES is an acronym for National Record of Practical Experience and Sea-Service. The australians really love their acronyms, just like the americans. By completing this book I will cut the seatime required for my coxswain ticket. down from 365 to 182 days of seatime. If you want you can download your own copy here.

Our captain is really eager to teach me all about the vessels, navigation, signals and everything else you would need to know at sea. And I'm eager to learn. I do have some experience from back home, and it has already come in handy.

After we came back I went to the sports club for a bit of a workout, and afterwards I relaxed in the sauna for a while. I was all alone in there (no I didn't fondle myself), and my mind drifted. It drifted to the beautiful saunas in Finland, and a familiar tune started playing in my head.

"Lissa laula, lissa laula, paaalevoo
Lissa laula, lissa laula, paalevoo…"

Good times.

Uncertified people can come out with us and to an introdive if they choose. They will have to meet up at the pool in the morning where we'll go through some theory (equipment, never hold you breath, and equalisation), followed about half an hour of pool training. People need to be able to perfom some skills in the pool before we will take them out in open water. if they can't do them, they fail and they will have to snorkel instead. for their own safety as well as for ours. The diveshop run through a lot of different people every year and there is a pattern to the country of origin and whether they pass or not.

People from the following countries usually suck (not in the good way) in the pool. China, Japan, Pakistan, India, and Ireland. The last one was a suprise to me, but people from Ireland are really really bad in water. It is perfectly alright to be a non-swimmer. But why , oh why, would you want to go scubadiving if you can't swim for shit? I simply don't understand that.

anyway…
This morning we had ten introdivers in the pool, and I didn't think it would be much of a hassle because we were three instructors. I was given the four irish girls since I was the most experienced of us.

Before we could start the pool training we had to talk to the weather girl at Sunrise Weather Winnebago. They were here on the island this morning and did their sunrise show from the pool where we do our morning training. The producer came over to us in the morning and told our boss that they wanted to interview some scuba divers in the pool. Our boss volunteered me and the four irish girls about three seconds later. We were put  on the bar stools in the island bar. yes.. there is a little bar in the pool we do our training.  The weather girl came over, chatted to us for a couple of minutes, and before long the lights came on and the cameras were rolling.

The girls were asked a couple of questions, and before I knew it she turned towards me. She only had one question for me, so I didn't really have time to get nervous. I think she asked me if the drinks we got from the bartender were real drinks or something. and then they had a commercial break and we got to continue with our training.  check this out.

I could elaborate alot about how the training with the irish girls went, but lets just say that they were very irish. not a single one of them passed the pool session.

I have now worked here on Hamilton Island for two months, and I have done alright so far. There has been alot of things to learn, many people to relate to, and many new situations for me. It has been all good, and I have really enjoyed myself so far.

For the most part I have done what I was supposed to do, and have done so fairly well. There has, however, been a few hickups.. or bloopers if you like.

On board Reef Spirit, the 20 meter diveboat, we have two toilets. they are connected to sullage tanks below deck and they need to be drained when we are not in a harbor or in a marine park.  The drainage pipe has a valve on it and that valve needs to be opened whenever we leave harbor/marine park, and closed whenever we enter again. usually the Deckwatch, the second in command, will tell someone to open of close the valve. And last week Scott was the deckwatch and he told me to go and open it as we left port. I have done this alot of times now and I know how to do it, but when I climbed down the hatch by brain had a little blackout. I remember looking at the valve and thinking. "hm.. someone already opened this". Because the valve was open I just left and went back up on deck again. In reality it was still closed. You might ask yourself if that really is a problem, and yes it is. Because we are traveling at 20 knots water will be pushed into the sullage tanks and they will overflow. The contents of the tanks will be floating around in the storage compartment. very nice… 

 When we got to the dive site someone went down there to close the valve again.  But they discovered that a) I forgot to open the valve, and b) we had a mix of salt water and fecal matter floating around down there. nice…..

That afternoon we cleaned it all up, and were actually able to pump most of it out with the fire hose. the remaining water slushing around the keel was sucked up using the vacuum cleaner.

After about a month the skipper we had gave me credit for not getting lost during the diving. usually people would surface everywhere, but I always surfaced pretty close to the boat. My response to him was that I will probably get lost eventually. I am very glad I have done alot of diving back home in Norway with many times bad visibility. That has taught me to pay attention to the small details that will tell you directions. angle of the sun, patterns in the sand, direction of current, how to measure distance, and also to some extent sound all play a role in determining where you are.

Yesterday  I got lost for the first time. And I actually had a compass with me at the time. very embarassing. I was a little too arrogant and didn't really take a good look at the compass before we decended. the plan was to follow  a bay back to the boat, but when we reached 15 meters and still no corals I knew something was wrong. I tried to picture the charts and the direction of the bay, but to no use. I was just lost, and after almost twenty minutes I brought the guest back to the surface, had a look around, and swam back to shore. we continued the dive from there. The crew on the boat took the piss out of me for getting lost. can't blame them.

🙂

My pal, Torkel, has just arrived in Brisbane, Australia. He will take his time and use maybe a week or two to get himself up here to Hammo. I am really looking forward to it, and I have arranged to take a week off work. We will probably hook up somewhere on the mainland.
Since this is his first time here in Australia I though I should post a small dictionary. The Aussie english can be quite different. most often because australians are a lazy people and will not pronounce the entire word if they don't really have to.

barbie = barbeque
brekkie = breakfast
tazzie  = Tazmania
kiwi = someone from new zealand
aussie= australian
mate = dude, friend, pal etc
hog = Big Dick 
fair dinkum = no bullshit
howsigoin? = how is it going?
avo = afternoon
tah = Thank you
Shano = someone named Shane
Johno = someone named John
Damo = someone named Damian.
and so on….

😀

But now I'm off to work. Today we're going to the northern side of Hayman Island, to Blue Perl Bay. I'm not sure wether I'll have snorklers or divers today, but it doesn't really matter. The bay is a great place for both in any case. Very friendly fish and lots of them. mainly because they have been fed for years. lots of coral bommies, fish, colors and lots and lots of good diving. the good parts are shallower than 10 meters. We are having a overcast and the temperature is barely over 20 degrees today. brrr… it's another cold day.

Most of the staff had the day off today, so a few of us took Wild Dream out. We went
to Eduard island to the east and went diving and spearfishing this afternoon.
It was a great afternoon. not only because I got to go spearfishing again, but mostly
because we didn't have any tourists to take care of. I could just sit back, relax, and
just take it easy. Scott and I went spearfishing while the rest went scuba diving or
snorkling.

I was exited to go spearfishing. first of all I haven't been spearfishing since I left
Norway, and second I wondered how much of a problem the sharks would be. When we go
diving here we see sharks maybe half the time. And now we were going to shoot fish and
fish rarely die when you shoot them. If you hit them perfectly they will die, but that
doesn't happen very often. most of the time the fish will still be very much alive,
swimming panicked around you in a circle with the spear sticking out on the other
side. back home that is not a problem since we don't really have any sharks to speak
of. I asked Scott about it and he said that we make sure we hit the fish in the head
and bring them back to the boat quickly. no problemo.

We towed a little surfboard with a box on top it after us, so we could get the fish
out of the water as soon as possible. it worked quite well. Because I haven't got my
own freediving gear yet I borrowed some fins and a speargun from a friend of mine.

After about 45 minutes I shot a coral trout and raced it back to the surfboard. I
reckon it was about two kgs or so. not long after that Scott surfaced and called
out:"Fuck!!" He had just shot and injured a large coral trout. he had it up on the
surface but lost it. The poor bugger swam off with its guts hanging out after it. He
turned around and said to me that we would probably see some sharks now. hehe…
But we didn't. I was actually looking forward to see some active sharks. normally they
just sleep on the bottom or swim sluggishly away.

I got tired after a while more and got back on the boat. Scott , however, couldn't
come back until he had killed something so we had to wait for him. He shot a nice
coral trout after a while and home we went. It was a great afternoon, and the weather
was great the whole time. not a gust of wind at all. just blue skies sunny sunny
sunny. beautiful.

The fins worked out well, and I was able to go down to probably about 15 meters or so.
difficult to say really. I timed the dives with my watch and they usually lasted
between 30 seconds to a little more than a minute. hopefully both depth and time will
improve. 

Pictures are posted here.