Diving at Port Stephens

A couple of months ago, prior to my trip home for the holidays (this should give you an idea of just how far behind I am on some of these posts), I went on another dive trip up to Port Stephens - just a few hours north of Sydney. It was just meant to be a weekend trip, with 4 dives planned, but also what was said to be some of the best shore diving in Australia.

Sadly, I didn't bring the underwater camera along this time, so you'll just have to deal with other peoples' pictures of fish and other underwater critters again.

Anyway, I've been fortunate enough to find a really great group of diving buddies, and we've planned things such that we've all been able to go on several trips together. I carpooled up to Port Stephens with a couple of them, and we arrived at the accommodation, which was essentially a massive house with bunk beds all over the place (this military-style bunk arrangement is turning out to be all-too-common). Conveniently, the house was right across the street from the Nelson Bay RSL Club - essentially an all-in-one bar, casino, game room, and dining establishment. I suppose I should also mention that glasses of wine were ~$3.50. It also bears mentioning that these shockingly-cheap glasses of wine did not kill me and, more to the point, were actually quite good. Being that we are a rowdy group of rascals, a few of us headed across the street to wait for the rest of the group and to unwind. It was a great way to start the trip, actually - had a couple glasses of wine, played about 30 games of Keno (nobody won it big, but it's surprisingly fun for a game that involves watching numbers appear). We spent a few hours there, and finally returned to the house at a somewhat reasonable hour.

The next day, we headed out to the boat and into the bay. I believe I've mentioned it already, but I've found a miracle drug that does wonders for my seasickness, so naturally, I was chowing down on the delicious gummy candy and cheese and crackers that were provided on the boat the entire time. A welcome change of events to hanging limply off the side of the boat from the trips of yesteryear.

Both of the dives the first day were quite cool - to the best of my recollection, the dive sites were called The Looking Glass and The Docks. The former was a tall but narrow channel going through a gap in to massive rocks. It also had a tendency to create a good bit of surge. Surge is one of the fun parts of diving (I say that half-jokingly, of course) - it's where the water rushes one way, and then suddenly rushes back the other. Essentially, you can be kicking as fast as you can and still be going backward, only to find yourself being rocketed forward by the surge the next moment. See? Half tiresome, half fun.

In The Looking Glass, we were fortunate enough to see a few grey nurse sharks (if you're a devoted reader, you'll recall my adventures with these bad boys from my Fish Rock dive trip). They were definitely not in the same numbers that were present at Fish Rock, but still no less awesome. There was one particularly mean-looking one with a big hook and thick fishing line dangling from its mouth. We made a run through The Looking Glass (ha), turned around, and headed back to the boat to go to the second dive site.

While The Looking Glass was a cool experience all in its own, The Docks promised to have more life available. And life it had - a few things I had never before seen underwater, actually. The first critter we managed to hunt down was an Eastern Blue Devil Fish. Somewhat skittish and difficult to find, they have some of the most brilliant blue coloring I've ever seen on a fish; almost a cobalt blue. The next critter we came across nearly had me speechless (not that speaking underwater would have done any good anyway): the Australian Giant Cuttlefish. Now, I had seen cuttlefish before on some of my previous dives, but at best, those were about 7-8 inches long. This one was pushing close to 3 feet. They just kinda sat there in the water, not really moving, but their side little flappy bits rippling away.

After 2 successful dives, we made our way back to the harbor and returned to the house. That night, we had our obligatory BBQ with beer, and there was much rejoicing (yay).

The following morning, stirring groggily from our beds, we were notified that conditions were not ideal for diving (read: 30 mph winds and 9' swells). Sadly, this meant we had to cancel our dives for the day. There are 2 upsides to this. The first is that I had heard the weather was going to be a bit iffy, and had purchased travel insurance ahead of time, which resulted in getting the appropriate cost of those dives returned to me (sweet). Second, a bit of foul weather was not about to stop this group from having a bit of fun, so we piled into our cars, and headed back toward a couple of signs we had seen just outside of town.

The Birds 2: Ibis Boogaloo

The first place we stopped was kind of an all-in-one fun park thing. We had seen the signs driving in, and were stoked for one reason and one reason alone: they had a luge. I had first been exposed to the wonders of the summer luge a couple of years ago in Austria, where there was a massive luge track at the foot of the alps. So much fun. Unfortunately, the Australian track was not made from cement as the one in Austria had been, but was instead made of metal. In addition to the high winds, it had also been raining. This tends to makes things rather slippery and, well...closed. But fate smiled upon us yet again! The rain stopped long enough for them to open the luge, and we lined up to hop on the carts (if you're not familiar with summer luge, you essentially sit in a large plastic egg carton with roller blade wheels on it, and control your speed by either pulling (brake) or pushing (lift brake) on a metal rod. That's it. No seat belts, no roll cage. Anyway, here's a video:

Despite the fact that the rain had stopped, it still caused a few problems for some people. Well, one particular problem, as it turns out. During their runs, some people discovered first hand the frictional properties of water on metal. More specifically, they flew off the track. No one was injured, but a few people ended up with damp buttocks and slightly-bruised pride. All in all, I would call it a great success.

Indoors at the same venue, they had a rock climbing wall. We naturally had to try this as well.

Indoor rock climbing or obscure fetish

house? You decide.

Shortly after this I tried to save someone

whose equipment malfunctioned and they

ended up dramatically slipping through my

fingers and falling into a ravine to their

death. I haven't climbed since.

Also, just for some additional entertainment, they had a large platform with a booth set up at either end. Each booth was outfitted with a large basket suspended under a hole in the roof by large rubber bands. The purpose of these baskets was to launch water balloons at the opposite booth in an attempt to drench the other people. We had about 10 minutes of fun with this, until we found out you actually had to pay for it. After a minor reprimanding, we went back to the cars.

Sadly, as a result of the positioning of the hole

and the slingshot, most of the time you just

ended up smashing the balloon into the underside

of the roof of your own booth.

Heading down the road a bit more, we found a new haven of fun: go-karting. Even more fun, go-karting on wet tarmac. There's nothing like tossing a small vehicle around a wet corner and powersliding across the pavement. Anyway, this was perfect for me because it satisfied two of my major needs in an activity: 1) it's highly competitive, and 2) it involves driving. I started in the 4th position and ended up weaseling my way up to first. Toward the end of the 15-minute race, a pileup caused me to hit the side of the track and slip into second. Such is life. We all had a blast and agreed that we had much more fun taking that little break than we would have diving the second day.

That's me in the middle, preparing for my inside

sweep to take the lead.

All in all, quite the fun weekend.

Sculptures by the Sea

Every year, to appease the malevolent sea gods, Aussies set up a series of sculptures along the wonderful coastline walkway leading away from Bondi to the adjacent beaches. Some of these sculptures are really quite cool, and it would appear that no one has yet taken my suggestion to create a full-scale papier-mâché replica of Godzilla that rises out of the sea. Maybe next year.

The display is free of charge, as long as you don't need descriptions of the art pieces. The program is extra, and presumably the funding goes toward the sea god tactical missile defense system. Presumably.

So, without further delay, I present to you a few of the cooler pieces featured along the walk.

Here we see a local custom: chumming the

water with surfers.

Whether this sculpture was meant to be a frame

or not, I used it as one. Some artist is pulling out

their hair somewhere and screaming 'Nein! Nein!

You are schupposed to view ze whole sching!'

You can't make it out that well, but there is a

rainbow arcing in from the left side of the image.

Lennon would have been proud.

This is basically holding the earth together.

If you remove the stitches, we all die. You'd

think they would have it roped off, or

something.

They released the hounds on some little kid

who was messing with the stiches.

These guys had been painted to look like oxidized

bronze, and had been holding each other up for

hours.

Drinks, anyone?

Just to give you an idea of just how cool this

office is, this is my teammate, Rick. With a

glass of wine. At 8:37 in the morning.

Manly-ness

Ever since arriving, I had heard whisperings of how much better the northern beaches were in Australia in comparison to the more local ones like Bondi, Tamarama, Bronte, etc. I'd been meaning to visit them for quite some time, but intentions sadly don't get me there any faster.

Fortunately, my teammate - Will - generously offered to play tour guide for the day and show me and another one of my teammates - Anna - around Manly, his neck of the woods and also the starting point of the northern beaches. Being car-less, I took the ferry from Circular Quay to Manly Wharf; which, frankly, was no more or less manly-er than any other wharf I had seen.

I was expecting more questionable body hair,

BBQ, and a greater prevalence of monster

trucks.

Not intending to go in the water initially, I had made the mistake of making the journey to Manly wearing my usual casualwear outfit of jeans, a polo shirt, and regular shoes. 5 minutes of walking down the main Manly promenade was enough to convince me that I needed some less-restrictive clothing, or I was going to collapse in a big soggy pile on the sidewalk, and then promptly evaporate, leaving nothing but my outfit arranged on the ground like a first-grader does just before his first day of school.

Eyeing a store that gleefully advertised 'wholesale prices,' I wandered in to search for an alternate change of clothes. A few minutes later, I walked out in my new board shorts and a $3 pair of sandals. Much better.

Having a bit of time to kill while waiting for Will, we made our way through the 93-degree heat to the beach. While I may have been obstinately resisting going in the water at first, just staring at how inviting it looked made me put all fear of death out of my mind and I went scampering willy-nilly across the sand into the surf.

Despite the fantastic beach weather, the area

never really felt all that crowded. If you look

carefully, you can see approximately 734 things

lurking in the water waiting to attack me.

After an hour or so of body surfing in the waves, it was time to meet Will. He picked us up and took us on a driving tour of essentially all of the northern beaches. It was really great to see them, and each and every one really is unique.

If you're a loyal reader of my blog, you'll recall ages ago my disappointment with Aussie milkshakes. Sure, they're sweet - deliciously so - but they lack the proper consistency. A proper milkshake should be nigh-impossible to suck through a straw. The reason I bring this up is because we stopped at a small cafe for lunch, and I noticed there was something on the menu called a thickshake. Long story short, it was a proper milkshake. Mystery solved.

We continued our grand tour of all the northern beaches, ending with Palm Beach, the northernmost of the northern beaches. By then I was rather tired, so I essentially napped for the remainder of the drive home.

Will, Anna, and yours truly. A word of warning:

rather than risk severe eye damage, I strongly

suggest you turn down the contrast on your

monitor. You have been warned.

The cliffs along the coast near Shelley

Beach, where, consequently, I just went

diving today. Good times.

Happy Belated New Year!

So, another year has come and gone, and for the first time in my life, I spent the first day of a new one in a new city. Having heard that Sydney has one of the largest NYE extravaganzas in the world, I planned my trip home such that I would arrive back in Sydney the morning of NYE, thus presenting me with the challenge of imminent exhaustion in an attempt to stay up until midnight having only received about 3 hours of mediocre sleep in about 36 hours. But a steady intake of sugar and movies assisted in my powering through the day to make it to the evening festivities - which, as it turns out, - included one of the most spectacular fireworks displays I've ever seen.

I ended up meeting a few friends and we wandered over to a park near Wooloomooloo Wharf to set up camp with a good view of the city / Harbor Bridge. Needless to say, things work a little differently around here (in one of the pictures below), but the show ended up being phenomenal, after which I promptly walked home and went to sleep...

...for roughly 3.7 days.

We actually had to wait in line to get into

the park. A public park. With a line. Go figure.

The CBD skyline at sunset. If you can't make

them out well enough, all of those little specks

in the sky are bats. The leave the trees in the

Royal Botanical Gardens at dusk to go hunt.

Thousands of them - it's an incredible sight.

More of the city skyline at dusk.

There were actually 2 fireworks shows - one at 9 pm for the kiddies, and another (appropriately) at midnight. The latter was the more sensational of the two, so here it is for your viewing enjoyment. The first video is the longest, but the second contains the big finale.

Merry Belated Christmas!

So, while I didn't actually spend Christmas itself in Sydney, like any other predominantly Christian developed nation, Christmas begins in October.

It was a very different feeling seeing all of the decorations go up while the weather was getting warmer and warmer. I kept expecting it to cool off, but alas - it was 93 degrees when I finally left for home on December 11th.

If I look tired, it's becuase it's ridiculously

warm outside.

The Christmas tree next to the clock tower

in St. Martin's Square. Any resemblance to

actual clock towers, living or dead, is purely

coincidental.

Back for More

Yeah, I know - it's been a while.  Part of it is due to the fact that I went back home to sunny California for the holidays, where I was very pleased that it was about 40 degrees and miserable.  My kind of weather.

The trip home was more than I could have hoped for, and it was much-needed as well.  I had missed my family, friends, my car, American fast food - and I returned to Sydney with a smile on my face, a bounce in my step, and a song in my heart.

Anyway, enough of that nonsense.

On with the updates!