It's Illegal to Handle a Koala in Sydney...

When we arrived at Sydney, we called several hostels until we found one with an opening for a private room for two.  We’d thought for sure there was some sort of festival or something going on, but Pippy just replied with "That’s Sydney!”  We were a little nervous to share a room with 6 other people when we already had to share a toilet…  We got a shuttle and found the place we decided on one that had an opening…  Hmmm…  A little shady…  Then Risa had a brilliant idea of checking on a different place right behind us: Sydney Centre Hotel.  They had an opening and it was $20 cheaper!  Yes!  Although it smelt of urine in the halls, our room was fine.

And so we dropped our stuff off and cruised around, heading to Darling Harbor.  What a fun place!  It had different kinds of fountains and a playground for the kids, tons of shops…  And  very large birds that looked too big for the trees they chilled on.  We decided to check out The Sydney Aquarium, which we thought was just extraordinary!  The Shark Exhibit was our favorite where they housed Grey Nurse Sharks, Lemon Sharks,  Wobbegongs White Tips, Black Tips, Shovel Noses, Smooth Stingrays, Fiddler Rays, etc.  We walked through the tunnel, but took our time enjoying them all!  We really enjoyed this aquarium and spent a lot of time there.  Afterward, we walked around the wharf and crossed the big bridge where we were met with cold wind.  Who knew Sydney was so cold?  We did a little bit of shopping and then returned to our ‘hotel.’  We are such grammas, falling asleep before 10pm…

The next day we had a date with our dear friend Pippy whom we met on the liveaboard.  She is a fantastic Aussie that we got along with brilliantly!  An adorable gal who’s fun and very outgoing!  We met up with her at Circle Quay (pronounce ‘key’) and caught a ferry with views of the Harbor Bridge and Opera House to Manly.  We thought the Opera House would be so much more than it was, but perhaps it was the cold and the rain.  We grabbed some brekky in the pouring rain and even ate outside until we were shivering.  We then meandered over to a pub for, what? Hot chocolate.  Strange, I know, but that’s how we roll.

We then hurried over to Oceanworld, which was suggested by our General Manager’s Assistant, Pat.  I know, I know, why would these girls who work at a marine park want to visit so many other aquariums and zoo-ish places?  Well?  If you know us, you know why.  We love the animals and can’t help it.  That’s why we get along so well!  So Pippy accompanied us and was more entertained by us big kids than the animals.  We had such a blast seeing all the animals.  We walked through the shark tunnel and awed at the Grey Nurse Sharks.  We watched the ‘Dangerous Australians’ show where Pete, the trainer, amused us with a baby croc named Crikey, (whom we got to pet), the world’s most deadliest spider (Funnel Spider), one of the most venomous snakes and more. 

Then we went on the Shark Tunnel Tour with Deanna and learned a little more about the sharks and rays.  We were not aware that the female shark’s skin is 3 times thicker than the males.  Who knew?  Makes sense though.  After our little tour, we spoke with Pete about their animal husbandry with their sharks and rays.  He didn’t have much for White Tips since they don’t house any, so we got a contact name from the front desk and Deanna who asked how we thought she did on her little tour.  She was excellent and we made sure she knew it J

By this time, we were starving so we hit up some Beruvian Bar that Pippy was interested in.  The food wasn’t our favorite, but it was nice and warm inside, so it sufficed.  Pippy texted Aron and he met up with us.  Aron is from Sweden, living in Sydney for a while.  It was quite funny when we invited him to Oceanworld and he said he didn’t want to be a tourist in his own city…  We all laughed about that.  Afterward, we hit up a gelato stand and hit up the ferry to go back to main Sydney.  Risa and I took a bunch of pictures on the way back of the Opera House, Bridge and scenery. 

(Aron and I sporting our twinner jumpers.)

(Risa and Pippy being kinda tough.)

After freezing our butts off, we joined Pippy and Aron again.  After a little banter with Aron, we convinced him to hang out with us a little longer.  We had some more laughs and made plans for lunch with Pippy the next day.  We couldn’t do brekky because we already had a prior engagement with the koalas at the Wildlife Center.

(Ferry ride around the Harbor.)

(We didn't get a chance to see the Opera House up close, but we did see it from afar.)

The next morning we awoke to a beautiful sunny day.  Why hadn’t it been like this during our whole stay in Sydney?  Well, I suppose we shouldn’t be too picky with the weather.  After all, it’s Sydney Australia!  We waited outside the Wildlife Center and had a chat with a nice Australian boy and an American girl.  We then entered the center and were shown, well, given directions to the rooftop for our brekky with the koalas.  We were met by an adorable Aussie boy, about our age.  This was our third time taking pictures with koalas.  Let’s just say, we had our fill.  They were so adorable!  There was one named Charlie who was jumping from tree to tree, bugging one of the females.  So cute!  Then we sat down to breakfast and had the same kind of meal we had on the liveaboard.  During our feast, Matt, our hot host, gave us seom facts about koalas that I was not aware of.  Stuff like: a newborn’s first meal is its mom’s feces, they sleep 18-20 hours a day, etc.  Very interesting stuff.  We had a chat with the older couple at our table from Holland.  There are heaps of people from all over the world in Oz!  It was fun hearing all the accents!  After eating, I snaked a couple packets of Vegemite and we conversed with Matt a bit about our adventures in the Coral Sea and Barrier Reef.

After our breakfast, we checked out the place.  It was awesome!  So many fun little critters!  It was a lot bigger than we thought it was.  It was full of all sorts of animals, including the adorable Sugar Gliders!  As we were walking around, we ran into 2 keepers who were walking a Wombat!  He was on a harness and was the cutest thing ever!  Apparently he had put on some weight so they had to start walking him.  They let us pet him and he was soo soft!  Even softer than the koalas!  We were there for so long and didn’t even notice how the time had flown.

We then wandered off to find Pippys’ work.  It wasn’t to hard since it was a giant skyscraper with a big red ‘W.’ We called her from a pay phone, which neither of us had used in years, and we were finally able to meet up with her after some directions as to where she was.  We walked up a couple blocks and suddenly felt like we were in New York.  Not only was it the buildings and the streets, but the heaps of people and large crosswalks that rushed the streets.  We met up with Pippy and met her mentor known as The Captain.  We had some good talks after The Captain went back to work, had some bonding time with Pippy.  After our meeting, we had our tearful goodbyes and Risa and I headed down Pitt Street for lunch.  There were a couple performers along the street and it sort of reminded me of Santa Monica’s 3^rd St. Promenade.  We ended up at a food court and found some grub along with some gelato.  We don’t know what the deal is with all the gelato in Australia, but we were in heaven!  I think we had it almost everyday our last half of our holiday!

Our next day, we had some time to kill before our flight so we opted for the Tarongo Zoo.  We thought it was better than wandering around since we’d done so much of that already and our poor feet and joints were so sore.  We caught a Harbor Cruise through Captain Cook’s and had a nice little cruise to the zoo.  WOW!  What a wonderful place for the zoo!  It is set up with a view to the Opera House and Bridge and is set on over 50 acres with over 800 animals.  We saw so many babies on our visit too.  A baby koala on his mommy’s back, baby chimps, baby gorillas,  and they even had a pygmy hippo that wasn’t on display.  This was our first time ever hearing of pygmy hippos, but how cute the adults are!  We got some great pix of these adorable creatures and then it was time to catch our ferry.  We actually ended up missing the one we had planned on and I lost my ticket.  Luckily I still had my receipt from the purchase.  Because we missed our original ferry, we grabbed some delicious nachos and ate them on the wharf.  On our way back, our little harbor cruise continued and we learned about the worth of some of the houses (some being around $24 million!) and even got a treat cruising by a nude beach (yikes!).

We planned on catching a taxi back to the hostel (which was our favorite, btw called Harbor City), but kept missing them and ended up walking once more.  I swear we don’t ever want to walk anywhere ever again!  Then I think, had it not been all the walking, we probably would have gained 20 pounds just on the liveaboard alone!  We ate so much on this trip and I must say I was very proud of Risa for how well she did!

Our shuttle to the airport was late and we were not fans of this driver.  Come to think of it, we weren’t fans of any of the Sydney drivers.  It was the closest to New York I can think of.  The driver almost charged us more for our 2 bags even though no one had said anything about this additional charge.  Then he acted like he was doing us a favor by not charging us.  Then he nearly killed a motorcyclist and yelled at him for waiting for a car to pull out so he could park there.  And I thought road rage was prominent in California..  Thank heavens we made it to the airport!  And we were on time too!  We did some last minute shopping and then boarded our plane.
I cannot even begin to tell you how sad we were to leave.  Australia had treated us so well, just welcomed us with open arms.  We met so many new lifelong friends and cannot wait to meet up with them again!

And so, our adventure from down under has come to an end.  We literally cried on the plane ride home for we had such an amazing time, we didn’t want to leave.  Tomorrow, I plan on doing some research on how to move there!  Cairns is going to be our new home, we’ve decided.  It’s Cairns or bust!

From Down Under to Kiwis...

From Cairns, we hopped on a plane to Sydney where we stayed for a grand total of a night.  The next morning, we flew to Christchurch New Zealand where we stayed for one night (I wouldn’t recommend this place to anyone...  Now let me tell you, exploding ears are not fun on an airplane.  I cannot tell you how many times we grabbed our earlobes.  We attempted to watch a movie and could only handle one ear bud in one ear so I decided to turn on the subtitles so we knew what was going on.  It was pretty awful.

The next morning we were to fly into Queenstown where we would meet for our (prepare for geekdom) our Lord of the Rings Tour.  Yes, I know, I know…  Well, Risa set her phone alarm for 5:30am or so so we could be ready to catch a cab by 6am and catch our flight.  Well, we awoke to a knocking on our door and it was like the movie “Home Alone.”  We both jumped out of bed and the chaos began.  Well, needless to say, we missed our flight.  But you know what?  Out of seven flights on this whole trip, you have to admit, we did pretty amazing!  So, we caught a later flight and shot an email to the tour company to pick us up from the airport.  That’s when we arrived at Customs and I had to be sure to claim the cheese Risa and I had bought for the plane ride.  (Seriously?  Australia has THEE best cheddar cheese in the world!)  We made it past customs and we met by the freezing cold.

(We're in freakin' New Zealand!)

As soon as we flew into Queenstown, we fell in love.  The Southern Alps are just a majestic sight to see.  The land is rich with greens and lakes and just so much beauty – all this from the view of the plane!  So we ditched our luggage with the airport administration and just caught our tour.  It was us with a young couple from Germany.  We began to smile and relax as we heard the tour guide named Val (a wonderful elderly woman) playing the soundtrack to LOTR and the German couple handing us the movie scripts.  We were very excited.  Like I said, we’re dorks ok?

(Southern Alps view form the plane.  Gorgeous!)

We began the tour by Val having us watch scenes from Two Towers with the Warg Riders.  That’s when we reached our destination at Deer Park.  We climbed up and up and up passing goats, ducks, llamas, al pacas, and deer.  The scenery was simply astonishing!  Val parked the van and we got out (Risa and I in our jumpers (hoodies) and beanies and scarf) to a sight that was just breathtaking.  There we stood on the edge of a cliff looking at the most beautiful lake and mountains I’ve ever seen.  Val said the lake is 400 meters deep and if you fell in the water, you would die of hypothermia real quick.  We believed her because just sitting on top of that mountain we were freezing!  It was a mere 7 degrees (Celsius) which is about 44 degrees Fahrenheit.  Now some of you may not think this is cold enough to snow but when you’re acclimated to Hawaii where it gets no colder than 68 degrees, you’d agree.

(The beginning of the LOTR tour, reading the scripts.)

We drove around to more film locations and then stopped at a place for our lunch.  Our meal consisted of antipasto and for Risa a Coke and for me, what they call a lemonade, which is basically Sprite.  Why Sprite?  Heck if I know, I’m a Diet Coke girl!  No worries, I had plenty of it! 

('Gollum' in The Two Towers hiding in The Dead Marshes.)

After our bellies were full the tour continued.  This is where we start to giggle a lot.  We stopped at a park with a fantastic lake and got out of the van.  Val then popped open the back and took out some of the movie props.  Not just any props, but LOTR heroes weapons!  She let us play with all of them and believe me when I say we took heaps of pictures!  We had so much fun, pairing up weapons and characters!  It was awesome!  I know, call us dorks again, it’s ok.

The tour continued and we went to a couple of rivers, including the river where the famous AJ Hackett Bungee Bridge is!  Crazy people, young and old jumping from this high bridge… Although, I would do it, Risa wouldn’t even set foot on the bridge.  The river in which we were standing above was in The Fellowship of the Ring.  We reenacted some of the scenes by pictures and continued on to check out part of the shots of where Arwen brings Frodo across the river and tells the Dark Riders to try and claim Frodo.

(Can you guess what statues we're supposed to be? Haha!)

Our tour ended a little late and we got back to the airport just in time to pick up our rental.  THIS was going to be an adventure!  Because I’m the gramma Risa put the car under my name so I drove first.  Now I don’t know if you guys know this, but in New Zealand, they drive on the opposite side of the road.  Having been driving for many years, Risa and I have America’s version of road rules engraved in our brains so it’s autopilot.  I cannot tell you how many times we almost killed each other.  We almost ran each other off the side of the road and into other cars.  Don’t even get me started on the round abouts!  Let’s just say it was all very exciting.  So we found our hostel (a YHA, which I highly recommend) and decided it best to walk in the small town of Queenstown.

(Risa and I with our wonderful guide, Val.)

Risa and I both love this town even though it’s a bit more touristy than what we’d like.  It is just gorgeous with its lakes and little shops all along the wharf.  Val and the German had told us about this burger joint called Fergburger that we must try so we got a burger to share with onion rings.  Risa started on the burger while I started on the onion rings.  After about a bite in a half, Risa was done with the burger.  The sauce they put on it was very different and that was all she could take.  I did my best to eat our money’s worth but wasn’t a big fan either.  We did well on the onion rings though so it wasn’t all wasted.

We cruised around a bit, shopping and then stopping at another place Val recommended called Patagonia.  This was a little chocolate shop with coffee, gelato and, you guessed it, chocolate!  We ordered a small cup of dark hot chocolate and were heaven!  It was THEE best hot chocolate we had ever had!  And it was perfect, considering it was 7 degrees outside – actually, cooler because the sun was going down.  Now sunsets in New Zealand are quite different than any other place.  They are, how do I put this?  Cleaner.  They cast shades of blues and purples and sunlight yellow.  Does that make sense?  And the reflection off the mountains and the lake?  Oh man, just perfect!

(THEE best hot chocolate EVER.  Patagonia.)

After we enjoyed our hot chocolate, we caught our appointment at a bar called Minus 5 Degrees.  This was basically an ice bar!  They dress you in super warm coats, gloves and Uggs.  Then they walk you into a freezer essentially, where you enjoy the ice sculptures and are a allowed one alcoholic or nonalcoholic beverage.  There you can sit or stand for 30 minutes and take pictures of all the ice sculptures.  I was fearful for my new camera to go into the bar.  After all, it was –8.2 degrees Celsius and I did not want to bust my camera!  As soon as we exited the bar, we thawed our hands and selves and walked back to our hostel where we had a good sleep, not to mention a great view out the bathroom window!

The next morning, we were off to drive across the country!  With Risa navigating and me driving, we were sure to be doomed… But because of our faith in each other, we survived!  It’s amazing how diverse the lands are in New Zealand!  And the sheep!  Don’t even get me started!  There were literally seas of sheep!  More sheep in that country than people!  No joke!  We made our way up north to check out Mount Cook and freeze our bums off.  Then we headed east to Lake (Titikaka is what we called it since we kept forgetting its name) Twizel where we got a bite to eat (Risa with her famous sandwich craving and me with my famous fish ‘n chips).  We took thousands of pictures as we enjoyed the beauty and kept on towards Christchurch.

By the time we got into Christchurch we were both knackered and ready to go to bed… But we had planned on sleeping in the airport since we had a 6:30am flight the next morning.  We decided it best to get a room and didn’t care about cost, as long as there was a shuttle to the airport.  We agreed on a hotel named Sudima, which we splurged on!  It wasn’t really expensive, but compared to the hostels we’d been staying in, it was a 5 star hotel which included a bathtub! 

Next morning we awoke at 4:30am and got to the airport to pick up our stored baggage.  We had each stored one of our bags here so we only had to lug around one bag throughout New Zealand (a great choice too!).  Well, after 20 minutes or so of waiting for someone, we got security to help us out.  When we got to the ticket counter, we discovered that our flight that was scheduled for 6:30am, which we were on time for, was actually for the next day…  Well?  Like I said, we did pretty amazing throughout our journeys considering how many flights and hostels we had!  And btw, Risa pretty much planned out this whole trip on her own so props to her!  Anyway, we resolved the flight issue and caught the 9:30 one instead.  More flying….  Our poor ears.

When Ears Start Exploding...

(Rainbow on Steve's Bommie.  Gorgeous!)

The next day after first brekky, which I braved a handful of cereal, we attempted Steve’s Bommie.  Risa and I decided on no guide again, for it seemed like a simple dive just around a pinnacle.  We began our descent and Risa suddenly got the worse squeeze in the history of squeezes.  Now our ears were having some difficulty before but we would never give into the pain and continued to dive.  Probably not the best choice…  Risa had to grudgingly abort the dive.  I was reluctant to continue but at the same time, I would have encouraged Risa to go out if roles were reversed.  I asked Lozza if I could buddy up with her and Camilo and she obliged.

We saw lots of Nemos, including what Andy showed me as “The Real Nemo.”  He was tiny!  I giggled as I saw him.  We also saw 2 Stonefish, one, which was white and easy to spot; Leaf Scorpionfish, and The Yellow Wall, which was basically a huge school of mixed yellow fish swimming slowly all around the pinnacle.  We also saw White Tips and one Grey Reefie.  It was a decent dive but I was lonely without my Risa.

After I ascended and peeled out of my wetsuit, I almost cried to see Risa lying on the couch in lounge, huddled up in pain.  I immediately went to her side and began to mother her.  She did not accept any of this but, me being the stubborn person that I am, grabbed her blanket and some Tylenol and the next best thing:  Chantes.  Chantes is one of the most compassionate people I have ever met and I was very happy Risa let Chantes take care of her.

After brekky, I got all geared up while Chantes, Maty and Andy teased me about going diving while my best mate was inside not feeling well.  I almost aborted the dive as the tears welled up in my eyes.  It is such a hard thing when someone you care about doesn’t feel well and there’s not really anything you could do about it.  The crew encouraged me to go diving saying that if it were me, I would want her to go have fun instead of feeling helpless by my side.  So I dove.  It was the same site as before and I was matched with Lozza and Sally (ugh!).  We cruised the dive once again seeing mostly the same.  Lozza spotted a baby Lionfish though and then I found a baby White Tip about 1-2 years old.

When I came up, Risa seemed to be doing a tiny bit better and even got herself some lunch.  She didn’t eat much (which is normal anyway), but then cuddled up on the couch again.  Poor thing!  It made me so sad to see her like that!  While I dove the next one, she went up to the look out deck and poked fun at the crew and had some laughs, which I think helped her feel a little better.  Meanwhile, I prepped for the next dive, which Andy came up to me and told me I was going with him very excitedly.  Apparently on this dive, known to the crew as Grumpy’s Place because of a hungry Cod that lives down there and is fed by other divers, there is a toilet.  How the toilet got there I have not a clue, but it is there.  Andy was SO excited for this dive because he was adamant about getting a photo of himself, sitting on the toilet reading a magazine.  He even donned two pairs of board shorts on so he could have one pair around his ankles.

So Andy, Teresa and I went down and ran into Grumpy.  As soon as Grumpy spotted us, he swam up to us searching for food.  Andy pulled out a large Ziploc bag full of fish and as he was about to pull one out, Grumpy ingested the whole bag!  We three just sat there like deer in headlights!  What could we do?  I immediately thought he’d killed Grumpy for I could see him trying to eat the bag.  Suddenly, Grumpy spat it all out and Andy quickly retrieved it.  We laughed so hard underwater our stomachs hurt.  It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.  Anyway, we played with Grumpy a bit and swam off towards another pinnacle where we found plenty of Blue Spotted Stingrays.  Teresa wrote to me on her slate how much she loved them and I agreed.  (Now this slate was actually Maty’s and that was the last we saw of that slate…  Who knows what happened to it?  Grumpy perhaps?)

(Andy is not sure "who" keeps feeding Grumpy, but somehow he always knows where to find it..)

(It's like Grumpy's telling me a story.)

We swam on and then we finally saw it: the toilet underwater.  Andy was so excited, he removed his fins, got his magazine out, gave Teresa the camera and we got his pictures.  Such fantastic pictures too!  We could not stop laughing.  Andy then asked if I wanted a picture with the toilet and I negated.  It would have been much more fun had Risa been there to take a picture with me.

After Grumpy’s Place, I came up to find Risa walking about and felt better that she looked better.  By now, I was having a difficult time hearing since my ears were so waterlogged.  I would not admit that I was suffering a bit too.  Risa laid down on the couch again and I laid down on the floor beneath her.  Yes, I love my friend that much ok?  Plus, we had already gotten yelled at for sitting on the couch whilst being wet and we did not need a repeat of that.  Everyone that came in all cooed at us and I was even waiting for someone to snap a picture since they’d been trying all week to get one of us sleeping.

Next dive I needed a buddy and was immediately snatched up by our new friends Pippy and Aron.  I was more than happy to dive with them because they were/are fantastic people!  We got along well with them and were more than happy to chat with them, etc.  We dove Flare Point, which consisted mainly of colorful corals.  By now, my ears were killing me but I refused to ascend.  We went out one direction and suddenly the current picked up.  We busted our butts to get back towards the boat and finally made it to a no current area.  We did not need a do over of the drift dive before…  At 30 minutes, my ears couldn’t take anymore.  Equalizing was impossible and I couldn’t focus on anything more than the pain it was causing.  We all agreed it was time to ascend and I was more than happy to do so.  At our safety stop, we spotted some huge fish beneath the boat.  It looked like a giant, stout Barracuda!  Who knew?  Aron was sure to get some pictures.

(Teaching Pippy the shaka underwater.)

As soon as I got out I tried my hardest not to show the pain I was in, just like Risa had done.  As soon as she saw me though, she knew.  It’s that whole BFFF thing, you know?  You can just tell and she knew.  Roles were reversed and she began to take care of me.  Adorable aren’t we?  This is when we started to call each other Mom.

The last dive of the whole live aboard was actually a bonus dive they tossed in due to Team America’s complaints.  That means there were 27 scheduled dives and 1 bonus one.  Risa and I both declined the last dive of the trip.  After all, we have to head back to a job that involves diving.  You catch my drift…

Throughout the evening Chantes was a big help.  She had taken care of Risa and then took care of me.  What a fantastic person that one is!  We became real close with her and became friends with other crewmembers.  We also befriended our beloved Pippy and her friend Aron.  It was an amazing 7 days with amazing people whom we will never forget.  And this is why we aren’t coming home.  We are going to live in Australia as soon as possible.  After all, we have a holiday visa that’s good for one full year!

The next morning, after not sleeping so well due to ear anger, we had our brekky and arrived back to the dock.  Risa and I were both so sad, for we had made such wonderful friends and had such a blast!  Andy said a few words and then they took some photos of everyone.  Risa and I decided to take our own photos with only the crew members because we did not really want to remember Andy’s team (aka Team America: the ones who kick and lay on coral, chase the animals away, touch things that they aren’t supposed to, feel an entitlement, etc.  No wonder others in the world hate Americans.  Thankfully, we were known as the Hawaiian Girls and not a part of America).  The crew really wanted us to meet up with them later but we decided it best to go see a doctor for our ear problems. 

(Risa and me, getting smooched by Chantes.)

(I still have no idea who's bunny ear fingers those are.)

(Risa and I with Pippy, the rockstar.)

(Us with the Kiwi, Maty.  I don't think he ever wore a wetsuit, just board shorts!)

Andy instructed the driver to take us to a 24-hour medical center and we were both seen.  Risa had an outer ear infection so bad that her canal swelled so much that the doctor couldn’t see anything else.  I had a double ear infection as well as a middle ear infection in my left ear.  We were put on drops and Risa got pain meds and I got antibiotics.  Then we were on our way back to Calypso where we took a quick nap.

At about 1:00 in the afternoon, we met up with the crew at a pub called The Courthouse.  We had lots of laughs and tears.  By 5pm or so we were all starving so we went to sushi… Well, a handful of us anyway.  Chantes proved to be a great friend once again.  Risa was in quite a bit of pain and we were both getting a cold that Team America brought on board.  Chantes disappeared twice and brought back with her orange juice, Advil, cold medicine and throat medicine.  A true friend and wonderful girl through and through.  She even drove us back to our hostel that night so we didn’t have to walk or take a shuttle!  See what I mean?

(Apparently I taste really good to Kiwis?  Thanks Maty.)

(Me, Maty, Pippy and Chantes.  Miss them so much!)

(Risa, Pete and I.  Such a fun guy!)

Our time in Cairns was definitely our favorite part of this whole trip.  Not only did we see amazing creatures in an amazing environment, but we met fantastic people who became quick friends.  This is why Risa and I are moving there.  The people in that town are just lovely, genuine people.  They love the environment and nature just like we do.  They are just marvelous people and we hope to stay in touch with them for years to come.  Had not been for this crew, Chantes, Andy, Maty, Teresa, Lozza, Dermot, Pete, Cameron and Tony, the trip would not have been such a blast.  Yeah the dives would have been astounding, but the time we spent with those new friends?  We wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world!  Love you guys!

The Awesomeness That is Osprey

Day 6

The 15^th of November is a very memorable one that I’m sure no one on the boat will forget.  Risa and I were paired with the elderly Sally and Andy as our guide.  Like I said, we were his faves.  We boarded our tender and were the first to reach the dive site known as North Horn.  We crossed our fingers and every other appendage for Hammerheads again.  Andy had Jesse drop us off farther than the others since we were all brilliant on air.  As soon as we back rolled into the water, we noticed the current change.  Andy even asked us which way the current was going to reconfirm his observation.  It was going opposite of where the boat was and this was to be a Drift Dive.  And so the swimming began.  We burned through our air so fast, but in the meantime did not want to miss any opportunity of seeing anything!  Risa and I were at about 30m most of the beginning while Andy stayed with Sally making sure she was ok.  We saw multiple Grey Reefies, White Tips (some came so close to us too!), and several Remoras.  We were giggling so much when the remoras first joined us because they were all over Andy!  We teased him a bunch asking him why he was so dirty since the remoras were on him almost the entire time.  They then moved to Risa and then to me.  (But they mostly stayed with Andy and Risa because they’re dirtier apparently.)  While we were doing our safety stop, in the shallows, I turned to see a large tail of some kind of shark.  I couldn’t make out what it was and that’s when Risa asked if I saw the Hammerhead!  WHAT??  That was a Hammerhead??  Risa said nobody believed her that she saw one, but I did because I saw the tail.  Stoked!  We counted it as spotting a Hammerhead even though no one believed it.

(Andy's so dirty, he needs Remoras to clean him up. Ew!)

As soon as we surfaced, strange things were afoot.  Apparently, we were the only divers to make it back.  Andy began to help the lookout right away as well as us.  All of those on the boat looked for any sign of divers, mainly the Safety Sausages we were all given in the beginning.  Finally, Teresa spotted one way out there.  They sent the tenders out to pick up the frustrated divers.  This is where we denied being part of Team America.  As soon as they boarded Spirit, a debriefing began.  They began to lose faith in the crew, asking if they even did a current check, etc.  Of course they did a current check, it was in the predive briefing we listened to.  Had these people not listened?  Team America began to put all the blame of the current change on the crew.  Risa and I were baffled as to how these people believed the crew had anything to do with a current change.  It happens.  It was a freak thing, but the ocean did it, not the crew.  You cannot predict these kinds of things.  Risa and I are witnesses that the crew did everything in their power to find the missing divers.  It makes me wonder just how professional Team America is.  After all, they are instructors, dive masters, etc, and yet they complained they waited on the surface for so long, but with only one safety sausage.  That’s right.  Apparently, most of them had removed them from the BCDs for some idiotic reason.  No wonder it took so long to find them – they didn’t follow protocol.  Not the crew’s fault at all.  (Your team Andy!  This is where Andy complained a lot about his team.  He then told Maty that we, the Hawaiian girls as we were known as, were assigned to Maty’s team.  Little did Andy know that made Mat’s team the best one on the boat!)

Anyway, to make smooth things over, the best dive of all came next: The Shark Feed!  North Horn definitely became a favorite real fast.  Before going in, we asked Chantes for a tip on where the best spot was.  We entered the water with our new found friends, Pippy and Aron.  As we descended the line, we could already se the sharks circling.  Such an astounding sight!  We grabbed our spots and watched the frenzy begin.  We sat in a horseshoe in the “amphitheater,” trying our hardest not to hurt the coral.  Andy tied off a garbage can of tuna heads and then dropped it so there was a chain full of heads.  TONS os White Tips, Grey Reefies and even our beloved Hammerhead!  Suddenly one of the giant Potato Cods approached the tuna heads and grabbed a bite.  He sat there on the line for the longest time, just eyeing everyone, claiming his bite!  It was hilarious!  Andy told us later that sometimes the Cod are even more aggressive than the sharks!  When we got the sign the feed was over and the sharks had calmed down a bit, we searched for shark teeth.  I was able to find 1/2 of one and kept it.  It belonged to a Grey Reefie and I was excited.  Then we swam down to where a plaque had been placed for a girl named Tracey.  This had been her favorite dive spot and they scattered her ashes there and placed a plaque.  Not a bad idea…

(Me, taking it all in with the Grey Reefie.)

The last 2 dives were at a site called Silver City.  They were pretty cool dives, but we were still on our shark high from that feed…  Nothing beat that dive!  We took about a bajillion photos and still have dreams about the feeding frenzy.  Just fantastic! 

This day is also the day we realized it was the crew that was making our trip so fantastic.  Team America had basically shunned us, as it was apparent at every meal.  In the dining room, they never left open seats for us.  It’s amazing to see how different people can be.  I don’t think Risa and I could ever be so inconsiderate or oblivious as this.  We learned to grab our food and join the crew in the lounge where we laughed and had a bit of banter at every meal.  It was better this way.  They were more our kind of people.  Just humble divers with great personalities.  Them along with Pippy and Aron made our trip for sure!  We wouldn’t trade any of them for anything!

(Playing with  raw egg underwater.  Teresa, Pippy, and Maty.)

A dream come true!

This is where the dives become even more amazing!  Osprey Reef.  Need I say more?  For those of you who don’t know about this fabulous place, it is 200 miles out to sea in the middle of the ocean.  No cell phone service.  No Internet service.  We were at the mercy of Mother Nature herself now.  Awesome.

Our first dive at 7:50am was a site called Around the Bend.  This is where Andy saw his birthday Hammerhead, so Risa and I crossed our fingers.  He guided us on this one.  Unfortunately, luck was not on our side, but we did run into more White Tips and were shown some Dogmouthed Tuna.  These made Risa hungry and the first thing she said when she surfaced was that she wanted sushi.  Go figure. 

Our next dive was Around the Bend once again, but this time we were “not guided by Chantes.”  She was supposedly there only to take photos.  This was one of the most rewarding dives, but also where Risa gets the Special Ed award.  We were cruising along when I realized I was at a depth of 39.1m, which is just less than 130 feet – the deepest allowed for recreational diving.  I came up a bit and saw Risa swimming downward a bit.  I was checking something out when Risa approached me, showing me her dive computer.  Ready for this?  She dove to 41.8m, which is about 138 feet.  Not to worry folks, she was scolded by Andy and won the award for the day. 

(Where fish swim... Up.)

THEN, the most amazing thing happened.  We turned around and there swimming right towards us, a beautiful Manta Ray.  This creature was amazing and just so graceful!  It was the first time we’d ever seen one diving.  We were SO happy.  After watching it a bit, we noticed one of the members from Team America swimming closer to it.  It had just turned around and was eating when coolio decided to reach out and try and touch it.  Risa and I got so upset.  It was then that the Manta spooked and swam away.  We could have had longer with this marvelous creature, but Team America ruined it, once again. It was still an amazing dive nonetheless.

Next we dove The Gap with Andy.  We truly were his favorites at this point, you could just tell, lol.  We saw a lot of fun stuff including a Nudie that he had never seen before.  I took several pictures, but unfortunately, the housing fogged up.  It had several dives of no fogging but of course, it had to happen when we saw this, what we’ve decided, rare Nudie.  I did get some snapshots, but he still turned out a little fuzzy.  Pretty cool though.

Next was Admirality, named due to an anchor that broke through the reef when Captain Cook anchored here.  Admirality is the brand of the anchor that is wedged in a swim through.  Maty guided us on this one along with our Hostee Teresa, from Sweden, whom we love.  Before we dove, Maty asked us if we were cool with swim throughs and we nodded in excitement.  These swim throughs were tiny!  We went through the several of them and I swear they got smaller every time we went though one.  There were times when we had to actually turn our bodies so we could fit.  After 2 of the other divers that joined us ran low on air and went back to the boat, we went back to the anchor swim through and this time, dove under the anchor and got a couple of great pictures.  Afterward, we stumbled upon 2 Octopus mating!  They were adorable and so shy.  We watched them for a while and then continued on.  Very fun dive.

(One of the octopuses we interrupted. Oops!)

(Admirality Anchor.  See it?)

In the evening while it was raining, we dove Admirality again.  This time with Chantes.  Before we descended she asked if we were ok with swim throughs.  I was a little nervous about Risa since she is not a fan of tight spaces but she said she would be fine.  We went through a couple of them, Chantes in front, Risa in the middle and me trailing.  In the middle of one of them, we sat there for what seemed like eternity.  Poor Risa almost had a panic attack during it all and I didn’t understand why we were sitting there not moving.  Apparently, there was a giant Green Sea Turtle that Chantes had befriended on previous dives sleeping.  She had to try and move him since he was blocking the whole tunnel.  He was gigantic and very lazy.  He turned to Chantes and Risa thought for sure he was going to bite her.  He just sleepily swam off to find another hiding space to crawl in.  We also saw a White Tip and TONS of Humphead Maori Wrasse.  It was like a parade of Humpheads, it was gorgeous!

It was another great day of diving!  That’s right, five more dives.  After this one, we were freezing!  Not only were we freezing but it was still raining.  It felt so nice to peel off our wetsuits (which stopped smelling so bad since we decided it was the Sour Apple solution they were using to rinse them with).  Up to now, we are at 19 dives.  That’s right, 19 dives in 5 days.  How do you feel about that?  We feel pretty good, although we were going through the Swimmers Ear drops real quick…