Merry Christmas and Mantas!

Hello and Happy Holidays!!!

A very Merry Christmas from Thailand (maybe a day or two early... depending on where you are!)

So for the last two weeks, we've been holed up in Ko Lanta, checking out another island in the beautiful Andaman sea. It's been amazing. As soon as our ferry moored up to the dock, we knew it would be an awesome laid back kinda place.

The first few days were spent renting scooters and zooming around the island, checking out beaches and running up and down rainforested hills. The island is beautiful. It's a lot bigger than Ko Phi Phi, but smaller than Phuket, so its perfect for scooter rides around the island. We're staying up in the northernmost bit of the island in a little town called Saladan. There are some really beautiful beaches down the west coast of the island and on the east coast you can find Lanta Old Town, where some of the wooden buildings are nearly a hundred years old.

After a day or two of land exploration, we hopped into the water. Our first day diving was off Ko Ha. Ko Ha means "five islands", all massive limestone cliffs. The first dive, I had some serious fish-nerd moments and saw some wild new fish... including a fish called an ornate ghost pipefish... a mouthful of a name for a fish only a few inches long. But they're related to seahorses and not terribly easy to find, so I was pretty pumped. One of our other sites was called the Cathedral. You entered a little cavern and after swimming for a little while, you can surface inside a cave under the island. There's a huge air pocket, so tall you can't see the top of the cave, but there's light coming in from the water below giving the water a luminescent green color. Very very cool dive.

Our next dives took us to a place called Hin Daeng and Hin Muang... allegedly some of the best dives on this coast. Can't say I disagree. The first site was just beautiful... lots of bright purple and red soft corals and millions of fish... The second dive we had a couple of manta rays!! There's only been a couple manta-free dives for the last few weeks, so after our first dive was lacking mantas, we were starting to get a little bummed. 5 minutes into our second dive, a big 4m manta cruised by. That was enough to get my manta fix, but they just kept coming! There were at least 3, maybe 4 different mantas that came by, including one big female. She was nearly 5m/20ft or so and she wasn't shy at all. At one stage, she swam straight at me, cruised underneath me and plopped down on the reef so all the cleaner fish could give her a good cleaning. It was one of the most amazing experiences... she was so close I could see her eyes and I really felt like she was looking at me just as much as I was looking at her!!

I got loads of video on my gopro, and as soon as I get motivated, I'll edit it all up and hopefully be able to share it!

On a drier day, we took a scooter down to the national park at the southern tip of the island. A beautiful spot, really nice beach hiding in some rainforest and infested with monkeys and monitor lizards. I've already had a bad track record with monkeys and this adventure certainly didn't help. I bought a couple of Cokes from the park's store. The women at the cashier warned me that the monkeys might try to steal my drinks, but I wandered back into the nature anyway. Within two minutes I was chased back into the store by two monkeys that were really after a caffeine fix. I used to think monkeys were cute! Not so sure anymore... they're too clever for their own good.

Ko Lanta has been a really great adventure... we've been passing our resumes around the dive shops here and on Ko Phi Phi as well, hopefully we'll find some work around these parts.

But before that happens I've got some silly parents coming to see me!!!! Mom and Dad are flying out in a few hours to come to Thailand!!!! I'm really excited, we've got some fun adventures planned. Elephant riding and sea cave kayaking and what not, so expect some stories from there! Also... Dad will be in a town full of ladyboys, so that should be entertaining.

Until then, HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!


LOTS OF LOVE! (and fishes!)

Phi Phi, Patong and Island Hopping fun!

Hey all!

After a couple days with Mike in Phuket, we ventured off to the islands. Phuket is very touristy, loud and in your face, so we though heading to the islands would be the right speed.

We headed to Phi Phi. I spent a couple days there when my friend Mark came to visit a few weeks ago. This time Mike and I were planning on staying for longer, to really check out the scenery and see if it was somewhere we could work. Obviously, the most important scenery was underwater, so just about as soon as we got there, we booked in for some underwater time.

The first dives we did were fantastic. We did three dives, the King Cruiser wreck and two reef dives, Anemone reef and Shark Point. The King Cruiser wreck was a vehicle ferry that sank mysteriously with no cars or passengers on it, just the captain, in the 90's. It was probably an insurance job, but they decided to leave the boat there anyway... made for a good dive spot. And now it is! There were SO many fish inside the wreck, thousands of little yellow snapper and other schooling fish. Lots of big buys, like baracudas and jacks, were cruising along the outside of the wreck. Our next dive was Anemone Reef, which was my favorite site of the day. It's named because the coral pinnacle that makes up the reef is literally coated in anemones and in most of those anemones there are a couple little nemos cruising around! We also saw a bright yellow seahorse, some really neat little eels, lionfish, scorpionfish and lots of squid! The last dive was called Shark Point, named because the reef come out of the water in the shape of a shark fin, not because there are any sharks. Another really cool site... saw some more creepy crawly guys... mantis shrimp, lionfish and eels!

On of our land days on Phi Phi, we went up to the viewpoint up on the top of the island, you can see the whole tourist village area. It's a beautiful spot, but holy hell does it take some effort to get there. Of course we took the long way accidentally.  

 

 Worth the hike! 

Another day, we rented a kayak and decided to explore the "quiet" beach nearby. It was called Monkey Beach for exactly the right reasons.... it was full of monkeys! So therefore, also full of tourists. "Quiet" beach, my ass! But it was still a beautiful little cove, the water was gorgeous and clear, the sand was white and fluffy and there were monkeys roaming wild! Some of the tour operators were throwing them bananas to get them closer to the beach and out of the trees. After checking out the beach, we went on kayaking for a bit more before returning to the monkey beach for a healthy snack of Pringles. We pulled the kayak up on the rocky end of the beach where there were no primates of any sort. I sat clueless on a rock, eating some chips where out of nowhere, one of the biggest monkeys jumps on my lap and tries to steal my can of Pringles! I threw a chip at him and ran in knee deep water. Even though they can swim, they don't seem to get in the water very much. The hungry monkey had brought along his family and before we knew it, there were eight or ten monkeys in our kayak looking for more food! Eventually they got bored and wandered back to the tour boat operators with the bananas.  

After our stint on Phi Phi, Mike and I had to venture back to Phuket... he needed to get his visa extended and I needed to hop on a plane to do my very first border run to Malaysia and back. We stayed in Patong, which seemed to have the cheapest accommodation. Patong is the Las Vegas of Phuket... it's loud, it's neon and it has no rules. Anything goes. We went out for a night, just to see the spectacle of it. Mike was terrified, because he couldn't tell if the people hitting on him were women or ladyboys... and it really is hard to tell! Some of the ladyboys are beautiful!!! It was a very weird night in a very weird town. Literally anything goes and everyone wants you to be a part of it. Let's just say there are some things in life you can't un-see. Although, I did get to hold an animal called a slow loris... google it. They're adorable. 

 My border run and Mike's visa extension were successful, so now we've hopped over to Ko Lanta, another island in the area, a three hour ferry ride from Phuket. So far, its awesome. It's slower paced than Phuket and Phi Phi and has some really beautiful beaches. We're off to check out the underwater world tomorrow, so hopefully that proves equally as beautiful! 

Love and fishes!!

The (second) beginning of the Thailand adventure!

I finally feel like my Thailand adventure has begun!

So since my last post, I've mostly just been hanging out in Kata Beach on Phuket by myself. It's a bit pricy out here, so I've mostly just been sticking to the beaches... I've gotten very very brown. My days have been rather uneventful... mostly have been sleeping in, going to the beach and reading for a couple hours then taking myself out to dinner. Not a bad way to spend time but I gotta say... there's only so many times you can eat dinner alone before the company gets a little monotonous, haha!

But that's all changed now! Mike has finally joined me out here in jolly old Thailand. He flew in a couple days ago and we've had a busy couple of days! We've been up to Patong, the crazy tourist town having a joyous time sorting out visas and passports and all kinds of fun things. We met up with his best friend from England, Sam, who's been in Phuket teaching English for almost two years. We had a blast with her. We met her for dinner and went out for some drinks... had a blast in Rawai... a little beach town just over the mountains from where I've been staying. She showed us some awesome beaches and we drank Malibu rum and coconut out of coconuts... doesn't get much better than that!

After popping back and forth to Rawai a couple times, we realized that cabs are not a financially viable way of travel when you're poor backpackers. There was only one other thing to do. Rent a scooter. I've said before that the traffic here is insane. Yesterday, Mike and I rented a scooter and went to go check out Big Buddha and some other spots around Phuket. I drove, since I've had extensive scooter experience (read: I've ridden one once....) I was never worried, but by the time we got up the mountain to Big Buddha, Mike was as pale as a ghost. Apparently he didn't have as much faith in my scooter driving skills as I did. Spent some time checking out the giant statue of Buddha and the other shines around and then we headed off on more adventures. The way down the mountain was a little better, I think Mike realized I wasn't going to kill him. Either that or he had a religious experience with Buddha and had accepted his fate. We drove around Phuket and wound up at the botanic gardens. Actually a really beautiful place... very quiet and peaceful with some beautiful flowers and plants.

Adventures in botanic gardens!

SO MANY PRETTY ORCHIDS! 

We decided to keep the scooter today, and I decided to suck it up and let Mike drive the scooter. At this point, whoever is on the back of the scooter is just terrified and clinging for dear life. Haha, but in all fairness he probably did better than me. He managed to navigate through Patong without getting us hit by a tuk tuk and that in itself is a great challenge.

Tomorrow we're heading out to Phi Phi island. I'm excited to go back and look at all the awesomeness again, and hopefully we'll be able to get underwater for a while. We're heading out for 5 days... going to check it out, hopefully find out if its a place we want to work! I'm not going to forget my camera on these dives... so I should have some good footage of Thai fish soon!

Love and fishes!!

Thailand is stupid.

Thailand is stupid.

Stupid beautiful. Like seriously, look at those colors. Stupid, stupid beautiful. 

So anyway! I've been in Phuket for a little over a week now. It's been pretty good... spending a lot of time on the beach being a giant bum, but I've had a couple of adventures, mostly with the help of my friend Mark. Mark and I were housemates in Cairns, and he was out in Phuket taking a tec diving course. On his days off, we would get together for some adventuring around Phuket. He's brave enough to drive a scooter, thank goodness for that. Although after riding around town with him, I have realized there is some method to the traffic madness. It DOES make sense somehow, despite the lack of apparent traffic laws. If parents will take their three year old children on scooters, I can certainly figure one out, right? 

Well, one of our adventures was to Big Buddha. Big Buddha is a gigantic statue of Buddha sitting on the highest point on Phuket so you can see him from all over. On the way up, are some beautiful rainforests and lots of elephant trekking places... those awesome places where you ride elephants around. 

Baby elephant on the way up to see Buddha! ISNT HE THE CUTEST???

Meet Big Buddha. 

Going up to Big Buddha was pretty awesome. It was the first religious sort of area I've been in since being in Thailand and it was really neat. There were lots of smaller statues and religious figures around underneath Buddha. There were monks chanting and you could even get blessed by one of the monks. Really a neat experience. Hopefully I'll be able to check out more temples and things around Thailand! 

One our adventure day we also went beach hopping. Mark showed me some of the beaches he'd been diving off of, much more scenic and less crowded than Kata beach. 

Nice little patch of sand tucked away in the jumgle

But mostly our adventures consisted of drinking lots of cheap cocktails :) Can't beat a beachside bar serving up pina coladas for about $3 US. But it was really nice to get out of the city and explore some of the areas off the beaten path. One of these days I'll work up the courage to rent my own scooter and head out on the road. 

Now for the last three days, I've been off Phuket. We went to Ko Phi Phi for a couple days, its an island just off the coast (two hours by slowwww ferry) and it is incredible. One of the prettiest places I've ever been (where the first picture came from). The water there is so turquoise and beautiful beaches and really dramatic cliffs. Our first day on Phi Phi, was just spend walking around speechless. It's stunning. It's a big island, but there's only a small area that you can live on because there are so many cliffs and mountains. There are no cars or motorized vehicles, just some bikes. The streets are narrow and lined with shops selling knock off Ray Bans and designer purses and neon "I Love Phi Phi" tank tops. There's street food and nice restaurants and lots of shady bars. It's paradise. There's also about 15 dive shops on this teeny tiny island, so I finally got underwater in Thailand. 

The diving was really beautiful. Different than anywhere I've ever been. We dived around two of the smaller islands off the coast of Phi Phi. 

THIS was our dive site. If you look in the water just in front of the island, you can see the teeny tiny heads in the water. 

We started our first dive in a shallow lagoon and worked our way into the deeper water just off the island. There wasn't much in the way of coral, but lots and lots of fish. Thousands of small snappers and fusiliers. We saw lots of the weird little creatures that were always pretty rare on the GBR. Lots of eels, scorpionfish, lionfish, and nudibranchs (kind of like sea slugs). We also saw a couple of turtles and a black tip reef shark. The second dive we did just around the corner from the beach from the movie "The Beach" starring Leo DiCaprio. Many of the same critters, but this site had some awesome swim thrus and small caves to check out. We went through one swim-thru to find a hawksbill sea turtle sleeping on the other side of it. At the end of the dive, when we had moved up into shallower water, we found this really neat little cave going underneath the island. We spend a few minutes poking around in there, found another eel and then surfaced. IN A CAVE. It was a really cool experience, coming up from a dive and being under an island. We weren't far into the cave, but enough to get that experience. 

Hopefully once Mike gets out here in about 10 days, we'll head over to Phi Phi to look for some work. Its just starting to be the dive high season over there, so hopefully we'll be able to find something... even just some freelance stuff. Mostly the only reason I want to work at the moment is so I can keep doing those awesome dives for free... haha. Or even better, get paid for them :)  Until then, I'm just going to keep being a beach bum and enjoy napping on the beaches and eating tasty tasty Thai food! 

Love and fishes! 

 

Mangoes in Thailand?

I suppose I should really rethink the name of my blog now, huh?

That's right. I made it to Thailand!

But first, a few pics from the Sydney adventure

Ta-Da! 

View of the skyline from the water

The harbor bridge with the opera house in the background

And also, as always, I went to the aquarium. :) This is a dugong, Australia's manatee. Don't tell the Florida manatees but I think this guy might be cuter. 

Sydney was fun! I did the touristy things, as you can see and finished up all the stuff I needed to get done before leaving Australia. I stayed on Bondi beach, which was very beautiful until it got cold the second day I was there. Good thing I did the beach thing on the first day! But aside from getting good pictures of the opera house and getting to see a dugong (and a platypus that wouldn't pose for a picture) up close and personal, Sydney was pretty uneventful. A couple of relaxing days to play tourist and get ready for Thailand. 

Which brings us to... drumroll please! Phuket! Where I'm currently staying! It was a long day of travel: an 8 hour flight, Malaysian immigration and customs, a three hour layover, an hour and a half flight and finally Thailand immigration and customs. When I got to my hotel, I immediately crashed out. I did not pass go or collect any food or souvenirs. I was beat. 

Day two in Thailand started out much better. I wandered down to the beach, which is beautiful and covered in tourists. Mostly from Russia, which I find slightly odd, but I guess Russians like to holiday in Thailand too! Then, culture shocked as I was, I made the mistake of leaving quiet Kata beach and heading to the tourist mecca of Patong. Now, Thai is a completely different written language, leaving me pretty much clueless with street signs. Also, my mode of transportation to Patong was also pretty alienating. I got into a tuk-tuk (which is actually pronounced duk-duk. Go figure. This is a weird little vehicle, like a mini truck. The back is enclosed, with benches, except where the tailgate would be. Now, driving in Phuket, ALSO terrifying. There are no real street signs, no speed limits and no real rules. Awesome. So I shell out 400 baht to get inside a weird little truck and careen around skinny mountain roads with about a million scooters, going about a million miles an hour. So then I get to Patong and things just got crazier. My first impression was taking the seediest parts of Key West and New Orleans (think sketchy girlie bars, sex shops and bars) and adding the chaos of downtown LA and then throw in a different written and spoken alphabet. I think we need to spend a few more days in the quiet bits of Kata before we venture back to Patong. A little overwhelming. 

Other than that, I've just been cruising around trying to get mt bearings. I'm staying in a little guesthouse on Kata beach, which is a nice name for a crappy hotel. But it'll do for the week or so I'm here! It's got air con and wifi, I'm happy. I'm going to be bumming around for 3 weeks until Mike gets out here... but hopefully I'll find some fun adventures to keep me busy. Look for pictures soon! 

Love and fishes

A bittersweet farewell...

Well, the inevitable finally happened. I'm writing this post from a hostel in Bondi Beach... a three hour flight from my beloved Cairns. It's the end of an era, folks. 

When I first moved to Australia, I planned on going to spend a bit of time in Cairns, check out the Great Barrier Reef and scoot on down the east coast over the course of three or four months. I told everyone that I'd be home in February (that's February 2013). What really happened went more this this: 

-Move to Cairns

-Realize Australia is freaking expensive and if I need to stay for more than three weeks, I need a job

-Got a job on Reef Experience

And it all went downhill from there. The crew I met on Rexy were/are amazing. I met so many incredible people who are now some of my best friends/family. Even when I stopped working there, I still found myself at the Pier Bar at least two or three nights a week hanging out with all the blue shirted Rex crew. I've seen a lot of people come and go from that boat, and from the other boats in Cairns. I've met some of the most amazing people from all over the world and I'll remember them forever and ever. I love Cairns and the dive life there... I love knowing that if I show up at the Pier Bar any day of the week around 5 or 6 when the boat crews get off, I'll find a couple people I know, if not a million. Now, maybe that makes us alcoholics, but where else can you find something like that? 

I can't wrap my head around that my time in Cairns is over. The people I lived with and worked with and met along the way have just been incredible and I love you all to bits. I've been lucky enough to have the best work mates and house mates ever... even if my work mates throw me in the marina or dye my hair blue and my house mates turn all my bedroom furniture upside down. Haha. I've had some great adventure days... It's hard when you have to decide in the morning which waterfall you want to go on any given day. I'll miss so many things about Cairns, but it's the people I'll miss the most. My heart aches because I know it will be a long while until I make it back, but I know I'll bump into everyone along the way. Thank God the diving world is so small :)  

My last week in Queensland was brilliant. Mike and I roadtripped down to Townsville to (finally) dive the Yongala, a passenger ship that sank in a cyclone in 1911. They call it Australia's Titanic... it was a fancy pants ship and all the passengers died at sea. Since it's been down there for more than 100 years it is COVERED with creatures. I've never seen so many fish in one place in my life. Not to mention the sharks, sea snakes and giant Queensland gropers. Beautiful dives... I took lots of video with the GoPro, so stay tuned for an youtube masterpiece.

Me and Mike hanging out on the Townsville Strand

We hung out in Townsville for basically three days. But got to stay with my friend Heather again. We met long long ago in the Turks and Caicos and we managed to hang out in Australia! Like I said, the diving/marine bio world is very small, so I know I'll bump into all these amazing friends somewhere else crazy in the world. Madagascar or Bali or South Africa or maybe even Florida ;) We also checked out the aquarium in Townsville (where I have been before, but Mike hadn't so I gave him the grand tour).

I may have had too much fun at the aquarium....

On my second to last day in Cairns, I went out on Mike's boat, the Falla, an old wooden sailboat where he works as an instructor. It was an absolutely idyllic day. Really doesn't get any better than that. AND I saw an octopus. :) 

So the Cairns leg of my adventure might be over, but I'm on to new and exciting things, I hope! Sydney for the next few days, then off to Thailand. Flying into Phuket on Tuesday and bopping around for a couple weeks until Mike meets me out there! I'm really sad to leave Cairns, it's been such a good home to me for the past year, but I'm also excited about the new adventures to come. To my Cairns family, I love you to pieces and I can't wait to see you on another journey. Thanks for an amazing year guys. 

Love and fishes. 

Adventures and the end of another job

Hello all!!

So I've been rather busy this last month, running around finishing working and such. So we'll back up a little bit.

For whatever reason, nearly everyone in my house is leaving in October or November. It's getting pretty empty around here. We went from a house with 12 people (we're legally only supposed to have 8 haha) down to 5. It's rather sad! Everyone's off traveling or headed back home, but I'm meeting up with a couple of them in Thailand, so it's all good. Anyway, Emma, one of my housemates from Sweden, has been volunteering on Falla, the wooden sailboat that Mike works on that I volunteered with a couple of times. She's been a volunteer hostie for quite some time now, so when she was getting ready to leave, she decided to have her leaving party on the boat! AND she wanted her leaving party to be pirate themed! So we took Falla out on a nighttime pirate booze cruise. Everyone dressed up, drank rum and had fake sword fights. I'm currently fighting with my terrible internet so I can't post pictures :( But it was way too much fun.

I've been working quite a bit lately, doing more open water courses, which is great experience and a lot of fun. My students have been really great and I've gotten to do some great dives, but more on that later. Last weekend, after my trip, we were making plans for an adventure day, but we couldn't sort out what we wanted to do. Eventually me, Mike, Kiri and Shane hopped in Kiri's car and drove north. Kiri's been in Cairns for over a year and she's never been further north than Port Douglass, which is about an hour out of Cairns. We drove, and stopped wherever seemed good! A couple of beaches and a zoo! We were driving by and saw the sign for the Daintree Wild Zoo and decided, what the hell, lets go play with some animals. It was an awesome day. We got to feed wallabies and goats. And scratch a dingo behind the ears. Again, I wish my internet wasn't being such a little shit or I'd show you the silly pictures.

Now, this week was my last trip out with ProDive and my last open water course with them. I had four students from Germany and Denmark. They were great! Great divers from the start, quite at home in the water so it was an absolute pleasure to teach their course. Now, since it was my last trip, we tried to cram in as many fun dives as possible, so Day 2, when I normally do 3 dives, I did 5. We all got up at 5am to do a sunrise dive on a site called Three Sisters that we never ever go to, because its owned by another company and their boat is usually sitting on it. The other boat was still sitting on it, but we swam over from our boat. Beautiful dive. Loads of fish circling three massive coral pinnacles (the three "sisters). Saw four or five whitetip reef sharks and lots of nudibranchs and flatworms. Next, after my two training dives, me and Paddy, another instructor, jumped in for another fun dive on Clownfish Bommie. It's a big coral pinnacle in the middle of nowhere that we're really not supposed to dive because it's so exposed to currents, but everyone does anyway... you just have to time the current right. It was perfectly calm so we jumped in no problem. It's called Clownfish Bommie because on top of this bommie are about 4 different species of clownfish and there are probably 50 individuals. 50 of Nemo's cousins! We were circling the bommie and find the most massive grouper I've ever seen. He could have easily swallowed me and Paddy whole. He didn't hang around for long, but it was still awesome to see. On the way back to the boat, we found Wally! Our local Maori wrasse, a big friendly beautiful green fish about my size. We played around with Wally for a while... he'll come over to your outstretched hand and put his big lips in your hand and push you around the reef. He's AWESOME.

Now, in addition to my awesome dives, I had some not so awesome pranks pulled on me. Firstly, on my first ocean dive with my students, Mark and Paddy filled up my dive booties with blue food dye. I still have blue toenails. I got pushed in the water at nearly every opportunity, leaving all my clothes soaked. On day two, I was tackled and tied up like a hostage. Hands and feet bound, pillowcase over the head and tossed into our inflatable rescue tender. I got driven over to another ProDive boat and left on the back deck. Luckily they didn't drive off too far, but everyone on the other boat had quite a laugh. Today was going very peacefully until we were cleaning up the dive deck during the last dive. All of a sudden Mark, Paddy and Taryn, all the other instructors came out with flour and eggs. Needless to say it got rather messy, because obviously I wasn't going to take that laying down. Flour and eggs EVERYWHERE. Then came the leftover food dye which has now turned parts of my hair a lovely shade of blue. It's pretty funny actually. Hopefully it'll wash out in a few days time.

All in all, I had a great time working for ProDive. It was an awesome experience and I learned so much and met some pretty cool people... even though they dye my hair blue.

Over the next two days, Mike and I are driving down to Townsville (about 4 hours south) and diving a world famous shipwreck called the Yongala. It sank in a fire over 100 years ago and lays in about 100ft/30m of water. It's known for it's massive massive creatures. Big grouper, rays, sharks, you name it. I'm hoping to see lots of new things :) After that, I have a few days to play around with before I'm off to Sydney. Having a big Halloween party at the house before I go. I'll try to update again about Townsville and the Yongala before I go to Sydney.

Love and fishes!!

Future travel plans!!!

Hi friends!

I've got lots of exciting news to share. Drumroll please....




I've made travel plans!



I'm going to Thailand! Wooooo! So, on November 2nd, I will cry my eyes out and leave Cairns to spend three days bopping around Sydney. From there, its off to Phuket, Thailand!

 I am going to be so so sad to leave Cairns, even thinking about it now is hard (especially because I'm officially one month away from leaving). I've got such an awesome little famliy here. I was at the pub last night, talking to one of my friends who's also leaving around the same time as me. We were talking for maybe 5 minutes, inside the bar, away from our normal outside table and no less than five people came by and jumped on one (or both) of us. THATS why I'll be sad. The diving community here is so tight and everyone knows everyone else. It's amazing. I can walk to the pub near the marina on any night of the week and I'll find friends. And I realize that makes us sound like alcoholics, but its just where we meet. The good news is that the diving community in the world is just as small and tight and I know I'll be seeing these people again somewhere in the world. Some of them are already talking about coming to Thailand sometime in the future.

As far as my Thailand plans are concerned, I'm not entirely sure what Phuket has in store. I know there's amazing diving, and beautiful beaches and rainforests, so I'm sure I'll figure it out! There's Bhuddist temples, authentic Thai food and elephants. I feel like I can't go wrong! I'm going to be there for three weeks and then Mike (the awesome English guy in my life) is coming to meet me and we'll figure it out from there. He's an instructor as well, so hopefully we can find some work underwater. I'll keep you all in the loop ;)

In other news, I went sailing yesterday! Mike works on an old sailboat that leads dive/snorkel trips out to the reef, and I went yesterday as a volunteer/hostie/just wanted to go out on a sailboat. But its a  wooden ship that was built in the 50's and used to be used as a pearl diving boat back in the day. It was a really beautiful day. Even got to hoist some sails and drive the boat for a bit!

Other than that, not much news to share! But I'll keep you posted about Thailand and other future adventures!!

My first open water course! And fun dives!

Hey friends!
I'm finally getting into the swing of my new job! The first few weeks it was new and exciting. The subsequent weeks were really stressful and frustrating. There is SO MUCH to learn on this boat. I do everything from teach diving to pump the sewage. Most of it is more complicated than any other boat I've worked on, and usually involves a lot more heavy lifting and muscles than I'm used to using. It's definitely a boat designed for guys and I struggled for a few weeks trying to fit in and not get my ass handed to me by everything.

But the last two trips I've done, I really felt better about everything. It's getting easier, everything is making a lot more sense and I'm even getting stronger. The last two trips I've really found my groove!

I got off of the boat yesterday, and that trip was the best one I've had yet. I had my first Open Water course! That's your beginning dive course, for those not up on the PADI lingo. I had four students in the pool and out on the boat. Luckily I wasn't thrown into the classroom teaching yet, I'm much more confident teaching in the water than out of it! One of my students was quite the handful. She was from California and around my parents's age (so 39, right Mom?). But holy cow, she could talk. We would be doing a briefing about how to use a compass and she'd be asking about whalesharks! I'd be explaining our skills for the next dive and she'd butt in, asking if I thought she was properly weighted! The whole course was an exercise in herding cats. But it was mostly one cat in particular... In the end the whole group did very well, all of them got certified and three out of the four went on to do the Adventure course (a night dive, a deep dive and a photography dive).

I usually don't get a chance to take photos, since most of the dives I'm teaching (read: herding cats). BUT I've discovered a clever loophole. One of the dives in the Advanced course and the Adventure course is a photography dive, so if my students want me to guide them, I bring along my camera as well! Its a teaching tool, I swear. :)

This is a cheeky little moon wrasse that wanted to be best friends. 

This guy is called Wally and he like chasing divers, long walks on the beach and putting his lips in your outstretched hand and dragging you around in the water. He's about 4ft/1.5m long! 

Cute little Hawksbill turtle! 

Nemo! 

On day three of the trip, crew wake up time is 5:30. It's rough, but when you're looking at this as you're setting up the back deck, it's not so bad...

Now, you might think that working as a dive instructor now, doing 8+ dives a week, I would be sick and tired of being underwater. NOT TRUE. Last week, during my days off the weather was amazing, so I booked a fun day on a dive boat! Me and Mike went out on Quicksilver, a boat out of Port Douglas, which is about an hour north of Cairns. Neither of us had been to the reefs that far north, so it was a good adventure. Since I booked on through my new job (awesome staff rates!) we were on standby, so we didn't know what we could get up to until we got there. As luck would have it, there were two spaces in the dive group so we got to go fo free! The funny part was that we had to do a guided dive with a divemaster! I'm an instructor, Mike's a divemaster (doing his instructor course this week) and we had to follow around a little group. It was nice in the end, though. We stuck to the back of the group and ignored the problems the other divers were having! It was my day off! I didn't have to deal with anyone's mask issues! And I didn't have to navigate, because we were following around a group! Too easy. 

Underwater selfies! 

A true Nemo! 

Open wide! Flowery cod showing off his chompers! 

That's about all that's new and exciting at the moment! Stay tuned though... hopefully I'll be making post-Australia travel plans in the next few weeks and let you know what's next in my globetrotting life! 

Love and fishes! 

Dive Instructoring and Silly Yellow Scooters

Hi friends!

Well, I'm officially working at a dive instructor! I know I said I'd post after the first week... but time flies and all of a sudden I was on a boat again!

So I'm working on a liveaboard dive boat that goes out on three day two night trips. On these trips, we've usually got one or two open water courses, which is your first dive certification. We also have advanced courses (which I taught both weeks so far) and we also have certified divers and snorkelers as well! The boat holds 32 passengers, which is a nice change from the 100 or so my last boat held.

So both weeks I taught the Advanced diver course and both weeks I also only had one student! Pretty easy for the first couple weeks of teaching! It went really well the first week and even better the second week! The advanced course consists of five dives: navigation, night, deep dive (to 100ft/30m), peak performance buoyancy and either photography or naturalist... depending on the students interest. Its a fun course to teach because the course is designed to hone skills (like navigation and buoyancy) and also introduce divers to different areas of diving (like night and deep). The skills are pretty minimal, its mostly just about becoming a better more experienced diver! It's way fun!

In addition to those five dives, I also do guided dives for the certified divers as well... leading them around the reef and showing them all the pretty things. The first week my guided dive was a little rough, since I had never dived the site... I was really the one that needed guiding! But it was still good... now that I've been out for two weeks I have a much better handle on the sites... like where Nemo lives and where the turtles like the sleep.

The sites we go to are really really beautiful... completely different places to where my old boat used to go! One reef we go to has a resident Maori Wrasse... they get about 6 feet long at full size. But most of them are really curious friendly fish. Our wrasse is called Wally... and he's SUPER curious. He hangs out under the boat and investigates the divers that are doing their safety stops underneath the boat. If you cup your hand and hold it out to him, kind of doing the queen wave, if you will, Wally will come over, put his big mouth in your hand and drag you around under the boat. It's amazing. One of the divers took a picture with me and Wally, so hopefully she emails that along soon and you can see what I mean :)

We also saw whales last week! I was cleaning the back deck, getting ready to pack the boat down (it was the last dive of the trip) and all of a sudden about 4 or 5 humpbacks surface just on the other side of the reef, a couple hundred yards away. Makes cleaning a boat a lot more pleasant when you've got company like that!

Even though I'm only gone for three days, it certainly takes a lot out of you. Last week, when I got off the boat, I barely made it out for post-trip drinks and crashed pretty hard the next day, sleeping until about noon. This week, I was planning on doing much of the same. Came home from post-trip drinks, crashed and was woken up by a text at about 9am asking if I was going to the waterfalls... Now... the waterfalls here are pretty hard to resist. I went and rounded up the housemates to figure out the plan. We had a problem... 8 people and only a 4-seater car. Hmmm... luckily, one of my housemates came up with a brilliant plan. Rent scooters. Silly, yellow, scooters. It was awesome. We rode them about 70km to Josephine Falls (which took about 2 hours... an hour longer than anyone wants to be on one of those things, by the way) but it was awesome. Josephine is amazing... there's big cliffs over deep water perfect for jumping, an amazingly scenic waterfall and a natural rock slide that you can slide down on your bum. Awesome. We hung out there for a few hours before turning tail and trying REALLY hard to get our scooters back by 5pm. We didn't make it, so we had the beautiful yellow things for the night! Made going to my work meeting that night way more exciting. Haha!

Things are going great in Cairns, I'm really liking my new job. Its a lot of work... a lot of physical work... I'm going to have some pretty good muscles after a few more weeks, but its good! Lots of diving, a good crew and I get to teach! Pretty exciting!!! Sending lots of love to all my friends and family back in the states.... come out to Cairns, I'll teach you to dive ;)

Love and fishes!!!

Gainfully employed... again!! :)

A thousand apologies for being the worst blog-writer ever and completely neglecting the last month.

I've been back in Cairns, safe and sound for about a month now, frantically looking for work as a brand-new dive instructor. I had a couple of trials and interviews, but none of them worked out. Everyone kept saying that the tourism would pick up and boats would start hiring any day now, but that day never seemed to happen. I have a handful of other instructor friends looking for work as well, so I was starting to worry about finding work as an instructor and getting ready to polish up my hospitality resume and start looking for bar jobs...

Until...

I applied for a job at the biggest PADI school in Cairns. They just certified their 130,000 PADI diver, so they're a huuuuuge company. I figured that since I was a brand spankin' new instructor, it would be a shot in the dark, but as luck would have it, they wanted to interview me! At the interview, I found out that in order to be considered for a job, I would have to go on a five day trial with the company, following two days of training in the pool and classroom and three days of training on the boat. It was a very busy 5 days, but it was a lot of fun. I got to work with really fun people and learned so much about teaching diving in real life. I basically followed around the senior instructor and watched him teach a full Open Water Scuba class, which is your first scuba certification. The boats go out for three days at a time to some really incredible sites, so it was some full-on training. Dawn to dusk every day kind of thing, but I loved every minute of it.

Apparently they seemed to like me as well, because they offered me a job! I start next week!!! I can't wait to tell you all about it... I'm sure my first week will be a bit of a mess, because there's a ton of information to remember, but I think it will be an amazing experience. I'm really pumped about it. So look for another post in a week and a half or so, hopefully talking about how awesome my first teaching experience was! Wish me luck!

Love and fishes!!!!!!!

Adventures in.... Perth!

More travels!

So after my instructor course wrapped up, we spent the last week in Exmouth just playing around and having a damn good time. One of the last things we did, was go on a dive under the Navy Pier in Exmouth. It's been called one of the best dives in the world, and for good reason! There were THOUSANDS of jacks and snapper under the pier. It's been in the navy's hands for a long long time, so there's no fishing anywhere near it, and the fish certainly seem to know. There were some HUGE grouper and a handful of sharks as well. Now, I really wish I could show you pictures of all the awesome things that I saw, the huge schools of fish, the toadfish, and alllllllll the lionfish, BUT unfortunately my camera has met its untimely death. As soon as I jumped into the water at the pier, it filled with water. Now, the outside of the camera may be waterproof, but all the electronics most certainly are not. It was still an amazing dive. 

After that, I flew back down the west coast to Perth... allegedly the most remote capital city in the world. I stayed with Luke, one of my friends from my instructor course, and he gave me the tour-de-Perth! Its a really nice city, but it was cold the whole time I was there... damn the Southern hemisphere and its backwards seasons. July is supposed to be hot!! Haha. But Perth was great, even went on a very very cold dive under a jetty. Despite the very very cold water (57F or 14C brrrrrr) it was a really awesome dive. I saw seahorses for the first time, which was rather exciting! And an octopus!

Other fun in Perth, went to the aquarium (of course... haha). Went on a very creepy tour of the Freemantle Prison. Think Alcatraz, but without the island. But it was at night, with teeny tiny flashlights, making for an extraordinarily jumpy time... but still fun! Awesome week overall, many thanks to Luke and his family for putting me up for the week... AND teaching me cricket!!

After that, I headed back to Cairns, and to the warmth! I've been back for a couple days now and its been great! On the job hunt AGAIN, so wish me luck! 

I'm a dive instructor!

Guess who's a dive instructor!!!

After nine days of training and two days of examination... I'm a dive instructor!

It was a pretty big ordeal. During the course, we worked all day for nine days doing classroom presentations, skills demonstrations, pool presentations and open water presentations. We learned how to teach, what to teach, went over mass amounts of theory, skills and paperwork. We learned risk management, marketing and sales to boot.

It was a lot of work, a lot of studying, but it paid off because when it came time for exams, we all passed! The exams took two days. The first day was our pool session, where we demonstrated a number of underwater skills, like mask removals, regulator recovery.... things like that. We also had to teach a skill in the pool with the other instructor candidates acting as students. Then we had our 6 written theory exams that night in physics, physiology, dive planning, equipment, general skills/environment and standards. Woo. The next day we had a full day out on the boat to demonstrate teaching in an open water environment and we also had to demonstrate the rescue of an unconscious diver on the surface. We did also manage a fun dive! The last bit of work we had was a classroom presentation on dive theory and THEN... drumroll... four new dive instructors were born!

Me and my instructor-mates. Joe, Luke and Anna. 

Other than dive classes, there hasn't been much else going on in my life. Diving has taken over my life for the last two weeks, but the last few days have been much more chill. Just been hanging around Exmouth, sleeping by the pool and letting my body recover from 11 days of study and stress. 

Today I went on an adventure with Anna, the other girl in my course. We went into a national park nearby and went to check out some of the beaches, gorges and some of the terrain. It was a really great day, pictures to come soon (as soon as I get them off my camera) but its really really beautiful out here. Very very different from Cairns, much more desert-y terrain. Lots of red dirt.

I'm staying in Exmouth until Thursday. Hopefully in that time I'll be going on the whaleshark boat tomorrow and diving Tuesday and Wednesday if everything works out! Then I'll be in Perth, a city in southwest Australia until next Saturday, hanging out, exploring and visiting friends. Then its back to Cairns to try and find a job as a super duper dive instructor!

Love and fishes! 

Whalesharks and mantas and dugongs, OH MY!

Hello from the West Coast! 

I arrived in Exmouth last Thursday... not even a week ago, but SO much has gone on. I'm out here primarily to do my dive instructors course, making me eligible to teach diving (once I pass...). The other reason I'm out here is for the amazing marine wildlife. 

So I got into town on Thursday, but my course didn't start until Monday. In the meantime, aside from studying course work, I was also able to volunteer on some of the shop's boats including.... the WHALESHARK BOAT!!! 

We went out on Sunday and from the beginning it was perfect. The sun was shining and warm (which has not been the norm since I've been out here) and the wind was calm (also not the norm...). On the way out to the reef, before we even got in the water, before we were even at the reef, we saw a dugong, which is Australia's version of a manatee... they're not quite as fat as Florida's sea cows and more brown in color. I've been wanted to see one since I've been out here, so right off the bat, I was ecstatic. 

We first did a small snorkel, just to ensure everyone was comfortable in the water before we started snorkeling with the whalesharks. After ensuring everyone was confident, we set off to find our sharks! On the way to find the sharks, we saw three manta rays feeding in some shallow water, so we decided to get a little sidetracked and jumped in the water! It was incredible, when we got in the water, there was only one of the three hanging around, but it was amazing. I've been waiting to see a manta ray since I started diving and have had some pretty unlucky misses over the years, but finally, FINALLY got to swim with one. 

After our manta ray adventure, we all got back on the boat and went to hunt down one of those big spotty fish... 

Basically, there are spotter planes cruising around looking for big giant sharks. The planes call the boats, and the boats go to the sharks. One of the crew jumps in the water with the shark and after the boat works its way around in a good direction, everyone else jumps in and swims along side, a few meters away. The first shark we found was about 5 or 6 meters long (15-18ish feet) We were able to get in with it for quite a while, it was really cooperative and didn't dive away into the depths. A little later we found a few bigger sharks, closer to 8 meters (22 - 24ish feet). These weren't as cooperative and after a few minutes they dove into the deep blue sea. But still AMAZING to see. 

Now, if a dugong, one manta ray and a total of four different whalesharks wasn't enough, we found an area on the reef where there were about A DOZEN manta rays feeding. We jumped in the water with them and unlike the first manta in the morning that bolted pretty quickly, these ones were not even slightly bothered by our presence. Some of them got so close, one even bumped into me! I'm not sure who it startled more! The most I could see at one time was five. Whenever one swam away, you would turn around and find two more swimming in from the other direction. It was the most incredible moment, something like you would see on Discovery Channel, but in real life. 

Since then, its been a little less fun and excitement... I've started my dive instructor course. It's going to be A LOT of work, 8 or 9 days of classroom and pool training followed up by a very scary two-day exam. It's a ton of theory, mock student training, rescue scenarios and classroom presentations. Like I said, its going to be A LOT of work, but hopefully it will be equally as rewarding. It's been going well so far, but this is only the beginning (cue ominous music...). 

Hopefully I'll have some more amazing stories to add to the not quite as exciting dive training this week! 

Love and fishes!!!

Goodbye Cairns (for now)!

Well, after 7 awesome months in Cairns, its time to see some more sights. I'm off today for Western Australia, a town called Exmouth. There, I'll be doing my dive instructor course. That means I'll be allowed to teach and certify people in scuba diving! Also in Exmouth there's some amazing reefs and best of all, there are WHALESHARKS. Big, beautiful, plankton eating sharks that can get almost 60 feet long and I'm going to swim with them!

I'll be in Exmouth for about three weeks, then I'm going to spend some time in Perth, which is a city about a days drive south. After that I'm looking at coming back to good old Cairns and trying to get a job with my new dive instructors certification!

The last few days in Cairns have been pretty crazy. I had my last day of work two days ago, which was a blast. There's a tradition that happens on boats around here... on your last day of work you get thrown in the marina! The Cairns marina is pretty gross. All those boats in such a small space, I'm sure there's plenty of chemicals... also some crocodiles, dead fish and other horrible things. And I got thrown into it! Twice! It's a tradition forged out of love... or so they say... But its been a great last few days here, making it even harder to leave! The good news is I'm coming back!

So its goodbye to Cairns for now... This has been such an amazing experience so far, I've met so many amazing people that I love to death. I've found such a great little family out here! It's sad to leave, but for now its only temporary. I'm off to new adventures! So expect more blog entries soon, because a lot will be going on that I can tell you about! And hopefully lots of amazing pictures!

Explorations and New Adventures.

A gigantic hello from the Land Down Under!

Life has been treating me so exceptionally well lately. I really can't be happier. I haven't been working as much lately, but its left me more time for adventures!

We took a bus up to one of the local beaches a few days ago, Trinity Beach. It's maybe all of a mile long, but on the south end of the beach there are all these massive volcanic rocks... perfect to climb on!

Obviously if you give me rocks to climb on and rock pools to look in, obviously I'm going to start poking all the animals with sticks. Including this little guy! A little octopus in the rock pool (perhaps a ROCKtopus?)! 

Also, I've just had my first Australian birthday out here! For those of you reading this back home in the US, my birthday is today, but for me and my Aussie buddies, it was yesterday. And it was SUCH a good birthday. I worked during the day, a pretty average work day, all things considered, but the pub after work with all my Cairns friends was perfect. I've got such a great little family out here, from all over the world, but we've all wound up in this awesome city. 

Which brings me to some bittersweet news... I'll be leaving Cairns in a couple weeks to explore some new opportunities on the West Coast of Australia! I'm going to Exmouth, a pretty small town on a big beautiful reef with some big beautiful animals. Ningaloo Reef is one of the largest fringing reefs in the world. Fringing reefs are generally closer to shore than barrier reefs (like the good old GBR in Cairns). The Great Barrier Reef is at least 10-15 miles offshore, where Ningaloo Reef is accessible from the beach. Ningaloo is also an area where whalesharks, manta rays and humpback whales migrate through every winter (read: now). So, I'm heading out there in a couple weeks to get my dive instructors certification! This means I'll be eligible to teach diving after all this, which would open up a lot more working opportunities down the road. Also I'll get to play with whalesharks, which is only a major lifelong dream. :) It's an incredibly bittersweet moment though. I've met some of the most amazing people in Cairns and its a city that's really going to stay with me. I might come back after my little foray out west, but for now its off on a new adventure! 

Love and fishes! 

Fishy Photos...

Guess what I've got???

Pictures! Apparently I've been failing at the photography aspect of my life, so I finally took my camera out on the boat yesterday! Of course, as luck would have it, it was some of the worst conditions I've been out in on Compass. Super windy, rained all day, and terrible visibility. However, my camera is smarter than I am and makes it look like the viz was amazing, so thanks technology! 

I haven't been working a whole lot lately... we've only got one boat running, which automatically slows things down, but we've also had a string of terrible weather, keeping the boat from running for a couple days. Hopefully things will turn around and I get spend some more time on the water soon! But for now, some pictures! 

Giant clam! These guys are super cool... they're about a meter long. Actually heard a story from one of the other boats that goes out to a little sand island... a guy was walking on the reef (a HUGE no-no) and stepped inside a giant clam. Clam grabs onto his leg and holds on for the better part of 40 minutes with only the guys head and shoulders above the water. Yeah man, that's what happens when you try to destroy the reef... it fights back!! 

This is a Titan Triggerfish... they build little rock nests on the reef and if you get too close... they bite! Argh! 

The little yellow dudes in the picture are coral rabbitfish... they always travel in pairs because they mate for life! Or at least that's what I like to tell the tourists. They are almost always in a pair though, they're pretty damn cute. 

And this is the tiniest, babiest lionfish EVER. He could have sat in the palm of my hand, no problem. Cute little zebra lionfish...

And this is my boat! Well, one of them. The other one is still in pieces at the dry dock... but hopefully she'll be back in the water in a couple of weeks! 

Love and fishes!