Alright, contest time again. The title of this blog entry is a clue to something I did today. First one to guess what I did get to be the first person to tell me what an idiot I am when I show everyone the DVD. If nobody gets it when I get back from the reef I'll post a picture.
So, Contiki is over, and it was great as usual. I did a reef day trip on apparently the worst possible day. As soon as we got on the vessel they told is it was extremely rough on the reef due to a high tide a gale force wind warnings. In fact, if the wind were any stronger they would not have gone out that day. This obviously made for one hell of a 2 hour boat ride. Thankfully I took the seasick medication and was fine, pretty much everyone else wasn't. That gives me a bigger confidence boost for the weeklong expedition starting tomorrow.
I did some really fun stuff on the Contiki including - White Water Rafting, Ziplining through the Daintree rainforest canopy, Sandboarding, and the mystery thing today. Not to mention knocking back unheard of amounts of alcohol. (Buy 6 drinks, get a free T-Shirt, dangerous promotion when it's 2-for-1 happy hour, mmmmm 12 drinks in 2 hours) Oh, and all the cool people I met.
Anyhow, that's all for now - I can't upload any pictures because I can't get to the tower on this machine, but check back later and I'll see what I can get done.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
The Midway Point
Half way through the adventures, things are great.
Contiki started off a bit slow because we started by going to most of the places that I've already been to so it was a bit boring. Once we got past surfers paradise though it doews nothing bt impress. The eas coast is beautiful.
We're on lovely Long Island (where the long island iced tea is 6 shots of alcohol and a squirt of coke) in the stunning Whitsunday islands. It's a tropical wonderland here. We spent the whole day yesterday aboard the 85 ft. sailboat Camira cruising through the islands, and good news, no seasickness! We were on board from 9-5 and I felt perfectly fine for the whole time, which is a great boost to my confidence about the upcoming Mike Ball journey.
No pictures yet - but I do have some good ones to show off, you'll just have to wait until I get back home to see them.
Contiki started off a bit slow because we started by going to most of the places that I've already been to so it was a bit boring. Once we got past surfers paradise though it doews nothing bt impress. The eas coast is beautiful.
We're on lovely Long Island (where the long island iced tea is 6 shots of alcohol and a squirt of coke) in the stunning Whitsunday islands. It's a tropical wonderland here. We spent the whole day yesterday aboard the 85 ft. sailboat Camira cruising through the islands, and good news, no seasickness! We were on board from 9-5 and I felt perfectly fine for the whole time, which is a great boost to my confidence about the upcoming Mike Ball journey.
No pictures yet - but I do have some good ones to show off, you'll just have to wait until I get back home to see them.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Advancing
Well, I have a new rating as Advanced Open Water Diver - which increases my maximum depth limit to 30 metres/100 feet.
Doing the course brought up a small concern I have about the upcoming travels. We were on a boat and did 2 dives on Sunday, one at North Head (the entrance to Sydney Harbour from the ocean) and one about 2km off Manly Beach in the ocean. I was mildly seasick while the boat was not in motion due to the large surge. Now, I wasn't physically ill but my stomach was quite upset and while changing over my tanks I was on the edge of losing it.
Now, this may also be due to the fact that I had only had a piece of banana bread to eat that day, which was most likely making my stomach hurt more out of hunger than seasickness. I was on a dive boat at North Head last month - and while my stomach hurt I was able to eat a burger on the boat without becoming sick - even though my stomach hurt even then.
So I'm a bit concerned about spending 7 days on a boat in the ocean. Now, the boat we were on was only for about 12 people, about 20 feet long, if that. Spoilsport (the Mike Ball vessel) is 100 ft. long, with a double hull and is 3 floors tall. That and the fact that the great barrier reef probably shelters boats from the major surge out in open ocean is convincing me that it is not nearly going to be as bad as things were on the weekend.
That, and whenever I get nervous about getting on board I read this, and all of a sudden I tell myself that no matter what I'm going to suck it up and just do it. Not to mention seeing pictures of just how big Spoilsport is makes me feel better as well. Compared to this, which is the vessel we were on over the weekend.
P.S. I've already gone out and stocked up on the Australian version of Gravol. And I'm considering getting some ginger pills to go with it. (Ginger is the only non-pharmaceutical remedy that worked to cure motion sickness on Mythbusters)
Doing the course brought up a small concern I have about the upcoming travels. We were on a boat and did 2 dives on Sunday, one at North Head (the entrance to Sydney Harbour from the ocean) and one about 2km off Manly Beach in the ocean. I was mildly seasick while the boat was not in motion due to the large surge. Now, I wasn't physically ill but my stomach was quite upset and while changing over my tanks I was on the edge of losing it.
Now, this may also be due to the fact that I had only had a piece of banana bread to eat that day, which was most likely making my stomach hurt more out of hunger than seasickness. I was on a dive boat at North Head last month - and while my stomach hurt I was able to eat a burger on the boat without becoming sick - even though my stomach hurt even then.
So I'm a bit concerned about spending 7 days on a boat in the ocean. Now, the boat we were on was only for about 12 people, about 20 feet long, if that. Spoilsport (the Mike Ball vessel) is 100 ft. long, with a double hull and is 3 floors tall. That and the fact that the great barrier reef probably shelters boats from the major surge out in open ocean is convincing me that it is not nearly going to be as bad as things were on the weekend.
That, and whenever I get nervous about getting on board I read this, and all of a sudden I tell myself that no matter what I'm going to suck it up and just do it. Not to mention seeing pictures of just how big Spoilsport is makes me feel better as well. Compared to this, which is the vessel we were on over the weekend.
P.S. I've already gone out and stocked up on the Australian version of Gravol. And I'm considering getting some ginger pills to go with it. (Ginger is the only non-pharmaceutical remedy that worked to cure motion sickness on Mythbusters)
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