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! 

Different boats, new adventures!

Hello friends!!

So things on the boat have been a-changing lately! Reef Experience, lovingly called Rex for short, has been my home away from home for the last four months and change. Rex got pulled out of the water about a week ago for some much needed love. She's up in the dry docks getting all new insides. The saloon is getting completely re-done, including a new floor and everything.

In the meantime, we're just running our other boat, Compass. Compass is the cheaper boat, aimed at backpackers and low-budget travelers. It's a slow single-hull boat, taking about two and a half hours to get out to the reef, compared to Rex's hour and a half. BUT Compass is a hell of a lot of fun. It's a different crowd, a lot more chill and relaxed. I started working on Compass this week and it's taken a bit of getting used to, since its a whole new boat that I've barely worked on with whole new quirks. But this boat has really grown on me. It's a nice relaxed time with less passengers than Rex, so I've had a lot of time to hop in for some snorkels and dives. Even took a couple of pictures the other day!

We've had beautiful clear water lately... the weather has been AMAZING. Hopefully it keeps holding! 

This is Frank. He's our local Maori wrasse... it's hard to tell in this picture, but he's about 4 and a half feet long. Frank doesn't like being photographed, so he's rather hard to chase down. But he's awesome. 

Backtracking just a pinch... as I said, Rex is on refit, which I get to help out with! Something that's completely outside my comfort zone, for sure... I went out and bought the tiniest steel-cap boots I could possibly find. A size 3 in men's thank you. I felt rather silly. I've only done one day so far, but it was pretty cool! The floor of the saloon is gone, which exposes the engine room and the hulls and all kinds of other things I've never really seen. I'm not very good at this taking Rex apart, but I'm looking forward to putting her back together again!

Oh, one other rather entertaining anecdote that happened today.... our glass bottom boat lives out on the reef permanently. We pick it up at the reef, use it for the tours during the day and then it stays on the reef until the following day when it all happens again. It's a small boat, only maybe 15 or 20 feet long. Now, the reef that the glass bottom boat lives on is rather remote. There's nothing around for miles and miles. This means the glassy is a very popular perch for sea birds. Sea birds poop. Therefore, our glassy is constantly covered in bird poop and it's a pain to clean every day... it can be time consuming depending on how many birds were around, and its just downright gross. Our captain came up with a plan a few days ago and went out and bought some of those fake owls that they use to scare birds on land. The only problem is these birds that are causing our problems are SEAbirds. Birds that almost never go to the mainland, except maybe to breed. They've never ever seen an owl!! They have no idea that it's supposed to be scary! We'll see if it works, but my money's on NOPE! The boat does look pretty silly with two big plastic owls on top of it though! 

That's about all that's new and exciting for now! Sending lots of love back home! 

Love and fishes! 

Whales and cuttlefish and power tools, oh my!

Alright, so firstly a big sloppy apology for my lack of posts. This is due to a handful of reasons.

1. Nothing super fun and exciting and out of the ordinary was happening UNTIL
2. My internet died again.
3. Now, I would love to have gone to an internet cafe and write a post, BUT
4. I've been working almost every day of the last two weeks due to Easter holidays.

Basically the day I was going to post something cool and exciting, the internet died and it has just now been resurrected. I blame the kangaroos. Or the wombats.

So I do have quite a bit to update on... firstly WHALES.

Last week, it was a totally normal, average day at work. About 80 people on the boat, light winds, pretty good visibility. One of my co-workers and I were standing on the snorkel platform gearing up people and getting them in the water. I saw a big splash out of the corner of my eye. Now, this is not unusual, there are lots of shallow bits of coral around, and waves break over top of them all the time. But then I saw a big fin come out of the splash!

Initially we thought it was a huge school of dolphins, but then we realized they were huge and black, which can mean only one thing! Pilot whales!

They look pretty similar to dolphins, but they're much larger and black. But these guys were amazing. They were maybe 50 meters from the boat at the closest and they were jumping and diving and breaching. Our passengers were slightly intrigued, whereas the crew were standing on the deck, mask and fins in hand, ready to jump in if they got any closer. In total there were probably close to fifty whales, including some babies! Throughout the day, we would hear them occasionally in the water, which meant they hadn't gone far, but we didn't see them again after the morning. 

A few days ago, I had another really fun animal encounter. It was a really chill day on the boat, only 30 passengers, so I was able to jump in for a quick fun dive. I found this awesome cuttlefish, which are one of my favorite critters for sure. They're really smart and you can tell when you look at them that they're really thinking about things. They change color and pattern really quickly, giving them some amazing camouflage. But I chased this guy around for the better part of my 20 minute dive, watching him change colors and get more comfortable around be and letting me get closer and closer and closer. Cuttlefish are AWESOME. 

So now, things on the boat are going to start changing a lot... we're pulling out Reef Experience (my boat) for refit. She's going to be all nice and shiny... getting new floors, new chairs, a whole new interior. The boat's going to be out of the water for at least 6 weeks. During that time we'll still be running Compass, which is our company's other boat. I know I'll definitely be helping out with refit things, which means I need to go buy steel-toed boots... what? But it'll be interesting to see the boat come out of the water and get to have a hand in some of the work. Chances are I'll also be working on Compass a little bit. I'm not entirely sure how its all going to go just yet, but Rex comes out of the water on Tuesday, so I'll be able to let you know soon! 

Now, I pinky pinky swear it will not be so long until my next post. I'm sure I'll have some interested stories to tell about me in steel-toed boots with power tools. 

Love and fishes! 

Adventures in Townsville!

Long, long ago in a land quite far away, I studied abroad in a little island nation called the Turks and Caicos Islands... there, I met some really amazing super cool friends that I'm still in contact with and run into from time to time. One of these lovely people is my friend Heather, who is living out here in Oz going to grad school! She lives about 4 hours south of me, in Townsville. Heather came up to Cairns last week to help out with a research project out on the reef and when she went back to Townsville, I tagged along for a couple days!

It was really nice to get out of town for a bit and see more of this big rock I'm living on. Townsville is a pretty cool area, it's got James Cook University and an army base, so its definitely got a different vibe than Cairns, which is primarily tourists, backpackers and divers.

One day, we went to this SWEET waterfall called Jourma Falls

On the road to Jourma

View of the falls from the lookout... we started down at the bottom and hiked up the rocks beside the waterfalls and made it up pretty high! There were little pools connecting the falls, so we would climb up to another one, swim around in the pool and cool off before headed up to the next fall. 

Checking out the falls...

One of the big falls near the top! The tallest one we got to. 

There were lots of great places for some cliff jumping action, lots of swimming and even hanging out behind a waterfall! We had such a fun, adventure day. It started raining as we were heading back down, and by the time we got back, the water had risen so much that the little boardwalk we walked in on (in the first picture) was underwater!

The next day I had some time to explore town on my own. There are lots of neat little shops and restaurants and a really nice beach area called the Strand, similar to Cairns' Esplanade, but the Strand actually has sand! Of course, the first thing I really found in Townsville was the aquarium! Shocking, I know. 

Leopard shark!!!

So many nemos!!!

There's a great big red rock in the middle of town called Castle Hill... apparently its only a few meters shy of being considered a mountain, so its only a hill. Poor thing. One afternoon Heather and I made the epic journey up the hill! There's a path going up it, and loads of active people running or walking up it. Meanwhile, I was huffing and puffing and complaining about altitude sickness. I don't encounter mountains in the ocean very often! Walking up hills is HARD. 

View from the top! That's Townsville and Magnetic Island chillin on the horizon. 

We also had an adventure to Alligator Falls as well, but unfortunately my camera died and I didn't get any photos :( BUT one of the coolest parts about Alligator Falls... Wallabys!!!! Everywhere! With baby wallabys!!! It was magical.

Had an absolute blast in Townsville, but now its back to work (if you can call it that...haha).

Sending lots of hugs stateside! 

Love and fishes!   

Fun with tourists...

Hey all!

Sorry I've been missing in action lately... I've been having a lot of technological problems with my internet! Technology doesn't like me much.

Life down under is still going swimmingly! The boats have been very busy for the last two weeks because of Chinese New Year. The actual new year was about a week and a half ago now, but its a pretty long holiday season. Since China's really not that far from Australia in the global scheme of things, we've had an influx of tourists the last couple of weeks.


Luckily we have a couple of Chinese translators working on the boat, otherwise we'd all be in trouble. Between the lot of us, most people know a little of one language or another, which comes in handy for translating tourist problems.

We have heaps of people that come to the boat with no idea what snorkeling is, let alone what a coral reef is. This is one of my favorite exchanges on the boat:

Do you know how to swim?? (with appropriate swimming charades)
-Nods
Are you suuuuuure?
-Nods
Okay then, in you go... head that way toward the reef.
-Drowns.

In the last few weeks I've done so many snorkel rescues... there was one day when I didn't take my fins off for a good thirty minutes because I kept having to hop in and rescue something... people, noodles, cameras, hats....

At the end of the day, we have passengers fill out comment cards about how their day was. One of my favorites, word for word:

-You should have warned us about the saltwater. 

Some other fun comment cards I've seen recently:

-The one in the blue shirt was smart (we're all in blue shirts...)
-Why aren't there more seahorses? 
-There should be some shade on the sundeck (Ahem... its the SUNdeck...)

Some days we have really good bunches of tourists. It was easy a few days ago... we had a group of 60 American college students on a study abroad program. There was a joke on the boat that if anyone had trouble, I was the American translator. Other days we have 50 people out of 100 on the boat that speak no English and don't know how to swim and put all their masks on upside down. Ohhhh boy. We all end up at the pub on the end of those days because after 10 hours of that, you NEED a drink.

But it all keeps things entertaining and you've got something to laugh about at the pub at the end of the day. Life is good on the boat and in Cairns. I realized the other day that I've been here 3 months already. I feel like I've been living here forever! Life is good!

I promise I won't be so long with another post! I'll get my internet fixed sooner, haha!


Love and fishes.  

Cyclones, Australia Day and bungee jumping! Oh my!

Well, I can honestly say that life in Australia is never boring...

Last week we got blown around a little bit by a cyclone with the most unfortunate name ever. Oswald. Cyclone Oswald cruised down the coast of Australia, giving us some nasty winds and rain, but not much else. It was enough wind and rain to keep the boat off the reef for three days though! Three days off of work! Too bad it was raining and windy and gross!

Now in Cairns, we got pretty lucky. Pretty minimal damage. Areas further south got nailed by rain and flooding and they're still having trouble as far as I understand.

So the day that the boat finally got back up and running was a very popular holiday around these parts... namely Australia Day! Pretty similar holiday to the 4th of July... lots of beers, BBQs and red white and blues. Although a slightly different flag. The only thing missing are fireworks!

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! 

So at work, we were all decked out in Australia flag fake tattoos, flags, I even made breakfast in an Australia flag apron. We had an awesome day out on the reef, good times for all. After work we had a BBQ at one of the crew's house, had some beers and said a lot of Australian things. The majority of the people I work with aren't Aussies... we're from all over the world (Canada and England mostly... but also France, New Zealand, other miscellaneous parts of Europe, Taiwan) , so it's fun when we're all pretending to be Australian! 

I had a few days off earlier this week... the first day I was super productive and got everything done, ran a bunch of errands. The next day I had nothing to do... soooooo I went bungee jumping!!! Yayyyy! It was awesome. So much fun, but so freaking intimidating!!! I was definitely more afraid on the top of the bungee tower than I was skydiving. I'm definitely going to go again... now I've got a frequent jumpers card :)

Other than that, just living it up in the insane Cairns heat... It's been near 100 F (38C) for the last week! It's been so bloody hot!!! I'm so glad I work on a boat most of the time and can just jump in the water whenever I feel like it! It's been beautiful on the water though... all the heat and the lack of wind has just made it super glassy out on the reef. It's amazingggggg! Everyone should come visit :) 

Love and fishes!