Merry Christmas from the other side of the world

So I've been at my new for a couple weeks now, and it's been awesome. Really really fun job, really great people that I'm working with. AND on top of all that, I get to snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef.

My job has so far been everything that I initially thought it would be, with a few added responsibilities like running the barbecue for breakfast... aka cooking eggs and bacon for 80+ people. The first day I was on BBQ duty wasn't very pretty, but its getting better! My eggs are looking more and more edible by day! Lucky they get put into a bacon and egg sandwich so no one can really see them anyway! 

A few days ago, we had a family on the boat and the dad was in a wheelchair. He had been in a motorcycle accident 14 years ago and had broken his spine and become paralyzed from the waist down. Apparently he had asked a bunch of other boats in Cairns if they would take him and he was turned down because dive boats aren't really handicap accessible. Well, we got him on the boat, despite lack of ramps and all that other stuff and everyone was determined to make his day awesome. When we got to our first site, a reef called Hastings, a couple of our divemasters helped carry him down the stairs and got him in the water. I got him set up with a life ring so he could stay floating in the water and still look down and snorkel and led him around in the water. He was SO thrilled to be in the water, he told me he hadn't been in the water in 14 years... no other dive boats would take him so when he went out with his family, they would be able to go snorkeling and he would just hang out on the boat. It was such a great feeling knowing that we were able to give him that experience.

Well, getting ready to spend Christmas down in the southern hemisphere... gotta say, it doesn't really feel festive when its 90 degrees and humid! At least Florida cools down a little bit! I'll be spending my Christmas Eve and Christmas day working on the boat, but its really not so bad! There are far worse places to spend Christmas than the Great Barrier Reef! And after work on Christmas, my parents will be coming to town! Excellent Christmas gift! Can't wait to show them around this ridiculous/wonderful city that is Cairns.

Sending a big Happy Holidays to all my friends and family following this. I hope everyone has an amazing Christmas with lots of love and laughter. Thanks so much for all the love and support on my Australian adventure. I wouldn't have been able to do it without you! I'm sending along as much holiday cheer as I can possibly muster! 

Love and fishes! 

Gainfully Employed!!!!

A job! A job! A job! 

A magical wonderful super-duper JOB! 

So, I was wandering around the docks with my resume in hand a couple days ago, asking the dive boats directly if they needed any help (going to the offices proved unsuccessful). I talked to one boat and they said that their marine biologist was actually leaving in a couple weeks, how would I like to go back to the office in a little bit and talk about the job? 

Ummm... yes please? 

So long story short, I am now the marine biologist on  a boat that does snorkeling and diving day tours!!!!! My job is pretty awesome. I start out in the morning helping out in the kitchen, getting the boat ready for the day, little things along those lines. After the safety briefing, I take over and give a marine biology presentation... just basic stuff like, what a reef is, why they're beneficial, how they're made, what kind of fish are around, what to watch out for, and how you won't get eaten by great white sharks. At the first reef site, I'll be working the snorkel platform, helping snorkelers in and out of the water and leading snorkeling tours for people that can't swim or aren't very good at it (basically dragging them around in the water while they hold on to a life ring). In the afternoon, I lead marine bio snorkel tours, where I take people out, show them cool things and find neat creatures to pick up, like sea cucumbers and hermit crabs and harmless things like that. 

YAY I HAVE A JOB. AND I REALLY LIKE IT. I've been out for two days on the boat now... one training day, and today was my first day on my own (seriously some trial by fire action), but it was good! I think its going to be a really great fit for me right now and I can't be more excited about it. 

Now, with me on the water every day, hopefully I'll be shooting out some entertaining stories about crazy tourists, crazy creatures, and probably crazy crew members! 

Love and fishes! 

Heat, job hunting and bird attacks. The usual...

Hey guys!

So a little update on my life... not a whole lot new to report. I've just been hanging out in Cairns, looking for work, and meeting people! But a few interesting anecdotes of my life right now.

First of all, being from Florida, I thought heat was no big deal... I've survived two Miami summers, I can survive anything right? Ah, well, see, here's the thing... when I lived in Miami, my deal lovely roommate (cough Kara Wall cough) liked to keep our apartment at around 40 degrees Fahrenheit (I have to specify now, since everything here is Celsius) So after being in the miserable Miami heat all day, I would actually get cold in my apartment and find myself in sweatshirts or sweatpants after work.

Well.... now my apartment in Cairns doesn't have AC so it's roughly 90 - 92 degrees here every day, but instead of retreating to the peace of an air conditioned apartment, I wake up and its hot. It's not unbearable, I've got a fan and a good cross breeze through my window. I go to town and before I even make it a block, I'm drowning in sweat. It's been really great, looking for jobs. "Hi, I'm Amanda. Please don't mind that I'm currently melting, but I would really like you to hire me." Then I get home from job hunting and its still hot. Still not unbearable, but its really hard to cool down when there's no AC....

On the topic of job hunting... holy cow. I've never walked door to door passing out my resume, but MAN is that intimidating. You've really got to have some tough skin and get used to rejection. I think I've been to the copy/print store like 4 times this week, just to print out more resumes. I think there are about 30 or 40 resumes with my name on them floating about in Cairns. I've a got a couple of things that might work out, but I'm not going to tell you about them yet, because I don't want to jinx it ;)

One last bit of Australia related news... and it's terrifying. The birds here are starting to make nests and have babies... Most people would think "Oh cute, baby birds, how lovely. Cute fluffy adorable things". NOT IN AUSTRALIA. In general, every creature in this country can kill you. If you've been following this blog since the beginning, you remember the cassowaries (giant jungle birds with talons that can disembowel a man). There's also countless snakes and spiders that will kill you with one bite. AND then you have cone snails... nice little sea snails that are one of the most toxic things in the ocean. Awesome. So, all the aside, one would imagine that the birds would be pretty harmless. Little song birds couldn't be dangerous right?? WRONG. In less than a week I have been attacked by no less than two different birds. One was a really cool looking bird called a curlew with huge eyes and long legs.

This is a picture of a curlew from the first week I was here....

Anyway, I was coming home from Cairns Central, which is the mall that's very close to my house (I've been hanging out there a lot since it's air conditioned) and on the way home one of these birds comes at me, with its wings out and making this insane hissing sound. WHAT? I may or may not have screamed at it like a little girl. But this bird was persistent! It chased me for probably half a block. 

The second bird came 3 days later. I was walking back from my apartments office and this little tiny black bird, about the size of an apple, starts DIVE BOMBING me and pecking me in the head!!! Excuse me? What is happening here??? Again, chased me for a half a block, pecking me in the head three times! Come to find out, its breeding season for both of these birds and they must have had babies or a nest nearby. Well, props to their parenting skills... but damn... I'm so done with birds. 

That's about all I can share from my side of the globe... hopefully I'll have some good news in a few days but again... don't want to jinx it! Just send some good job-hunting vibes my way! :) 

Sending lots of love from Oz! 

The GREAT Barrier Reef

Hey strangers! So sorry I've been missing in action for a couple weeks, but the Coral Sea doesn't have very good wifi.

I'll start from the beginning, I suppose. Two weeks ago on Thursday, I started my volunteer position on Mike Ball Dive Expeditions, an excellent liveaboard dive boat out of Cairns. They do 3, 4, and 7 day dive trips out to the Great Barrier Reef and the Coral Sea. I was initially on for a week as a domestic volunteer.

Now, before I bore you with an account of every single dive that I went on and every fish that I saw (I won't do that, we'd be here for a week), I'll explain a little of what I did as a volunteer. I spent the majority of the time working with the hostess, Becks and the chef, Levi. I initially wanted to be down on the dive deck helping out with the diving side of things, but I really had a blast hanging out in the kitchen. Becks are Levi are really fun people and there was a lot of laughter coming out of that kitchen. I helped out with some food prep (although it was quickly discovered that I cannot cut a watermelon in straight, even pieces to save my life), lots and lots and lots of dishes, cleaning up the guest rooms, lots of vacuuming and other similar chores. It was hard work, but I was rewarded with some of the best diving I have ever done.

The first dive that I did on our first day on the water I couldn't contain myself. I was seeing coral in colors that I didn't know existed. I practically screamed when I saw my first giant clam. And lets not even talk about how excited I was when the white-tip reef shark swam by. I think my dive buddy, an experienced diver who had spent a good bit of time in the Great Barrier Reef, thought I was an absolute nut.

The next amazing, jaw-dropping dive was later that afternoon when we dove a site called the Snake Pit. Now I had kind of forgotten that sea snakes even exist. We sure don't have them in S. Florida or the Caribbean... But as soon as we dropped down, BAM. At least four or five olive sea snakes, just swimming around like its nothing. Now, sea snakes are actual snakes (as opposed to eels which are fish) and breath air and flick their tongues and act just like regular snakes, except they're 60 feet underwater. Awesome.

Olive sea snake

The first day we spent on the GBR, but that night we ran up to Osprey Reef in the Coral Sea. This is a reef that comes out of nowhere. The water surrounding the reef is literally thousands of feet deep, which means really really epic wall dives. On the first dive at Opsrey Reef, a site called Halfway, I went to nearly 100 feet, but I could see down at least another 100 feet, and it was just sheer walls of coral and blue water as far as you could see below. 

This picture is the best one I have showing the wall, but it goes

 for probably 1000 feet just like that...

At Osprey Reef, we also did a shark feed at a site called North Horn. There's an area in the coral that almost looks like an amphitheater. They do this shark feed usually once a week, so the sharks know that as soon as the boat shows up, there will be some tuna heads. When we jumped into the water, there were already maybe 15 or 20 sharks swimming around. After everyone got settled, sitting still and not moving around, they brought down three tuna heads in a garbage can. When the tuna heads came out of the garbage can, 30-40 grey reef sharks and a dozen white-tip reef sharks went at it, full feeding frenzy style. It was AMAZING. I felt like I was in a documentary or something, watching these sharks tear into the tuna heads. Really neat to be able to witness that many sharks in that small of a place. 

After Osprey Reef, we stopped at Lizard Island and changed some passengers. Some stayed on for a week, but we traded out about half of the passengers for some new ones that were on for the 3 day leg of the trip. We bounced back through the GBR diving at some other amazing sites like Acropolis, which was the best coral cover I have ever seen on any reef ever. 

So over the course of this first week, I discovered that while the other two volunteers were on for two weeks, I was initially only scheduled for one week. I definitely wanted more diving. There was going to be some crew shuffling after the first week and when we got back to Cairns after seven amazing days on the water, we realized that the video pro wasn't going to be on for the second week, meaning there would be an extra bed in the crew cabins. We got back into Cairns, cleaned up the boat and then the crew had a couple hours on dry land before the boat was leaving again. I hung around the boat, waiting for the operations manager or the captain to show up so I could try and talk my way on for another week. Eventually the captain came out and asked if I wanted to be on for another week, of course I said yes. He asked if there was anything I needed to get done before the boat left again. I did, I needed some clean clothes... He told me to RUN. I had to be back on the boat in 45 minutes if I wanted to be on for the second week. Instead of running home (I never would have made it) I wound up running to mall and picking up a few essentials from Target (yeah, Australia has Target, its wonderful). 

I was back on the boat for round two! And round two was even better! This trip was a week long, no stopping in the middle and switching passengers and it was a deep reef expedition. We went to some deep reefs in the coral sea that hadn't been dove in quite some time. Some of the guests on the boat were excellent rebreather and technical divers, going to 160 ft and more, exploring depths of these reefs that had never been explored. Even though I didn't go that deep, I still saw some amazing things like....

SO MANY SHARKS

And potato cod!!! (like a goliath grouper, only more personable)

NEMOS

And really amazing reef fish...

It was a really amazing two weeks and I did some of the most amazing diving I've ever done. The people on the boat were so much fun and I would love to get back out there again... This was definitely an experience I will never forget and I feel so lucky to have had this opportunity...

Now, I'm off to try and find a real paying job! Wish me luck! 

Love and fishes! 

Total Eclipse of the Sun... and some other exciting news :)

This was a morning so monumental, it got me out of bed at 4:30am. Today was a total solar eclipse. It's the first one to come across northern Queensland in 700 years and another one won't happen here for another thousand or so, so it was a really big deal.

The newspaper said they were anticipating an additional 50,000 visitors in north Queensland JUST for the eclipse and there were  5 charter planes that came over from Japan JUST for the eclipse. I met someone who came here from San Francisco, just for five days, just to see the eclipse. Apparently these things are a big deal and I just got damn lucky.

The only problem was that its been raining and cloudy here for the last three days or so, which has made everyone really nervous about the eclipse viewing. People were trying to avoid it by chartering boats or driving out to the country, but I decided to head down to the Esplanade this morning with the riff raff that can't afford those fancy things.


It was pretty cloudy when I got to the beach around 515. The sun was going to be rising in eclipse, starting at like 5:30. It was mostly overcast for the beginning, but the sun finally peeked out when it was about 60% eclipsed. It was incredible, like nothing I've ever seen. After that, it looked like there was no hope. The big clouds rolled in and it looked like we would miss the total eclipse.

Cloudy, cloudy, cloudy...

BUT for about 30 seconds, the clouds parted and we were able to see the sun just as it was turning into the full eclipse and it was AMAZING. Such an incredible experience. As soon as the sun eclipsed, it got so dark that you could see the stars (including Venus and Mercury!) The total eclipse lasted for two minutes and then is started getting light again... really such as surreal experience.

Partial solar eclipse taken through my sweet eclipse glasses. 

It was a really really amazing experience. I might not travel across the world to see another one, but I can absolutely see why you would want to!!!

Now... drumroll please... I've got some excellent news!!! I'm going out to the Great Barrier Reef!! TOMORROW! I got a last-minute position as a volunteer on a dive boat going out for 7 days! I'll be living, eating and diving for free, but I'll be earning my keep doing some housekeeping and helping out the staff. I'M GOING TO BE DIVING IN THE GREAT BARRIER REEF! This has been a dream of mine since I was a little kid and I can't even believe that it's finally happening!!! I'll be off the grid for 7 days, don't miss me too much! Hopefully I'll be back next week with some amazing stories!! 

Rain forests, cassowarys and waterfalls.

After spending the last two days wandering aimlessly around Cairns, I decided I needed to branch out a little bit. I booked a tour that would take me up to the rainforest and do some silly touristy things like pet kangaroos and learn to throw a boomerang.

I left this morning at 715 in the rain. We took a bus up to Kuranda in the rain. I pet the kangaroos in the rain. Despite my very very bad luck with the weather today, I had a grand time. I went to this place called Rainforestation, which is a little tourist attraction up in the jungle. They had cool animals...

Like these really stressed out, not at all relaxed kangaroos...

But they don't pose for pictures very well... they really like eating grass. 

This is a really cute wallaby. 

So yeah, the animals were awesome. Except for the cassowary. I didn't even photograph it because the first time I walked by, I was too afraid of it and the second time I walked by, it was hiding behind a bush. For those who don't know, a cassowary is a flightless jungle bird, like a smaller version of an emu or an ostrich. Now, for those of you who know my irrational fear of birds larger than chickens, you know that this bird, just in its mere existence is the embodiment of terror. Now, lets add some more variables to this terrible creature. 1). It looks like a dinosaur. Google it. 2). It's very territorial. 3). It has three razor sharp talons on each foot. Now, combine numbers 2 and 3 and you have a bird that will disembowel you if you piss it off. I'm sorry, if that's not the scariest animal in the jungle, I don't know what is. 

After the adorable/terrifying animals, we went to the next part of a tour, a demonstration of aboriginal tools, like spears, boomerangs and didgeridoos. I don't even want to talk about how terrible I am at throwing boomerangs and playing the didgeridoo. After failing both of those tasks, they definitely wouldn't let me play with the spear. 

The last leg on the Rainforestation extravaganza was a really cool tour through the rainforest in one of those amphibious boat/car things.

Rainforest! 

This rainforest is a World Heritage Site, which makes it super important and awesome (The Great Barrier Reef, the Grand Canyon and Yosemite are among others). Well, from what I saw of it, I agree. Some of the plants made me feel like I was stepping onto the set of Jurassic Park. Really, really cool. 

So the next (and last) adventure of the day was the village of Kuranda. It's a cool little town nestled up in the rainforested mountains. It's a cool place to see and has other attractions within it, like a butterfly sanctuary and a spider zoo (yeah... a zoo just for spiders). I spent a little while browsing the shops, but once I decided I didn't want to spend any more money, the town got quite small. So I ventured out with my tour friend and we decided to go find Barron Falls, which was about a 5km walk (I have to learn kilometers now... dammit). It was a really lovely walk through more rainforest areas, although it was a little scary when I saw the sign that said "Caution: Recent Cassowary Crossing". Anyway, long story short, we found the falls and they were glorious. 

So that was my super cool day. I'm a big fan of the rainforest and hopefully I get back up in that region again, because I'm sure there are more really cool things to see. But now I'm going to try and buckle down and find a job in a dive shop. Wish me luck! If I don't get out to the reef soon, I might die. 

Petting koalas and pictures...

Drumroll please...

I have moved into my apartment! Hooray!

My bedroom is THE tiniest thing in the entire universe... no holds barred. I think my bathroom in Miami was bigger. Actually I think the bathroom in THIS appartment is bigger than my room! It's all good though. It has a bed and a dresser and a mini desk thing... what else could I need?

Life is going swimmingly around here... spent the last two days wandering around some more, taking a nap on the Esplanade and getting nice and sunburnt, which means I have some awesome tan lines... haha. There's a mini zoo on top of the casino here (random, I know) but I went there yesterday. It was pretty small, but there were some neat birds, reptiles and a big ass crocodile named Goliath. But the BEST part was the koalas. There were three of them and I got there just before feeding time! One of the keepers pulled one out, her name was Pavlova, and I got to pet her cute little face! If I had paid an extra $16, I could have held her and had my picture taken, but I refrained. There is plenty of time for koala holding, I can't do all the fun stuff in the first week! But apparently in Queensland (the state that I'm in) is the only place in Australia where you can hold koalas because the further south you go, the bigger they get and in southern Australia, it would be like holding a small labrador!!!

And now, what you've all been waiting for... pictures from the last few days! Hooray!

Some sailboats across from the harbor... apparently Australia has mountains. I missed that memo initially. 

A non-rosette spoonbill

I wish you could see how BIG this pelican is. 

BATS! I wish I had a crazy zoom, because they're super cute, but they're too high up in the trees to photograph well! 

The swimming lagoon at the Esplanade... it's a nice little man-made beach and pool since there's not really a good place to swim near Cairns. 

Kookaburra at the zoo! 

Goliath the crocodile... 

And last but not least, the cutest creature in the history of the universe, Pavlova the koala! Look at the fuzzy little ears! 

SO. After a harrowing few days of moving out of my apartment and getting ready to move around the world, I managed to get all my stuff in two backpacks and a large suitcase. Everything I need in my life I can shuffle around the airport by myself. It seems crazy. I left Miami around four on Monday evening. I got in to Cairns around noon on Wednesday... It took a 5 hour flight, then a 13 hour flight and another 5 hour flight.

After nearly missing the first flight because Miami Airport has literally the slowest security line EVER, I was sure that I had gotten all the weird flight juju out of the way. Nope. My first flight runs out of WATER. They come in halfway through the flight to tell us that if we want to go to the bathroom, they'll provide hand sanitizer since they neglected to fill the water tank before the plane took off. How does that happen? The good news is that after that hiccup, everything went great. On a related note, I would just like to throw it out there that I think Air New Zealand might be my new favorite airline. If you ever have a reason to fly with them, I encourage it. Their safety video is really funny (youtube it!) and they fed me like six times. It doesn't take much to win me over ;)

Probably about 9 hours into the 13 hour flight, I just couldn't sleep anymore and found myself sitting in the dark and asking, "What in the world am I doing?" I had a moment of panic when I realized that all this was actually happening and I was on a plane en route to New Zealand. No turning back now, that's for sure. When it started to get light out, and the clouds began to clear and I could see my stopover destination, things were looking good again. I wish I could have spent a more time in New Zealand. It just looks way to beautiful not to return to. Gorgeous shorelines, rolling green hills... I'm going try and find my way back there at some point.

A few hours later I found further undeniable confirmation that I'm doing the right thing. I saw the Great Barrier Reef from my plane window. Any doubts I had were gone.

I got to Cairns, got through customs without a hiccup and headed to my hotel. I'm staying in a hotel for the first two days so I can get my feet underneath me and figure out the time change without having to worry about the other variables like roommates, unpacking and all that. I'm agreeing with this decision, except that I'd really love to get rid of this giant, overweight suitcase.

I got into the hotel and came to a horrible realization that most travelers probably figure out BEFORE they leave. My computer, cell phone, hair dryer... none of them are going to fit in the plugs! Australia has different outlets! So I was set out on an adventure to find a voltage converter thingy. Now, normally the mall would not be the first place I would set out to explore in a new place, but that's where the closest electronic store was, so there you go. It was actually kind of fun and probably a good exercise since that's where a grocery store and a currency exchange are.

I spent the rest of the day getting hopelessly lost in Cairns. I found the docks, a lot of the shopping and dining areas, I found the ocean, the swimming area...

Sometimes, walking around, it reminded me of Miami. Other times, Honolulu. But then I would look up and see something so completely different, there would be no doubt that this was Australia. Like street signs in kilometers, flying foxes (a kind of bat) in the trees, cars coming down the wrong side of the street, kangaroo burgers...

So day one was a success! Good introduction to this new crazy place! Stay tuned for more adventures in Oz!

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade! Well, life in South Florida has been giving me some pretty honkin' lemons lately, leaving me unemployed and single, so I'm going to take all those lemons Down Under and try to make some lemonade in the Southern hemisphere!

I've got a short-term working visa and a one-way ticket to Cairns, Australia. I don't have a job or friends in Cairns, but I plan on finding both. I'm hoping for a sweet job on a dive boat on the Great Barrier Reef, but I'll settle for a job in a restaurant if it'll pay the bills. I have an apartment for the first month, so that's a step in the right direction... I'm planning on staying until around March if things are going well!

I'm terrified, excited and a million more emotions, but most of them are positive. I think this will be a great adventure and a great opportunity to explore a new place, meet new people and try new things!

The bottom line is that I'm starting up this silly ol' blog again because I'm leaving in ONE WEEK. Hopefully I'll be filling this with entertaining stories, anecdotes of my ridiculous life and photos! Stay tuned, folks...