Sailing the Whitsunday Islands, Australia Part 2

If you missed Part 1, find it here.

In the beautiful resort town of Airlie Beach, we checked into our sailing trip and boarded the lovely 43' ketch Kiana for three days and two nights of navigating the Whitsunday Islands. We were assigned a "big" cabin under the deck with a double bed and a bunk above. The double was missing a corner. I slept in the upper bunk because it was hot both nights. There were twelve other passengers and four crew aboard. Two from DC, four from Hungary, two from Germany, a French family of four, and our Aussie crew. We sailed (motored) out of the harbor, through Hook Passage to Whitehaven Beach which may be the most beautiful place in existence.


We hiked up to a few overlooks of swirling turquoise waters and white sand. Then walked down for a little beach time. Like in Cairns, we were required to wear stinger suits to get in the water. So, we had a beautiful beach to enjoy dressed like ninjas. Hmmmm… We walked the whole beach and waded into the water to find stingrays that wander right up into the shallows. There were also these pretty little lemon sharks in a lagoon and the shallows. It was amazing!


Afterward, we sailed around Whitsnday Island and camped in a cove in the wind for the night. The Whitsundays have these delightful creatures called March flies. When I say delightful, I mean hell spawn. They are the size of quarters and can bite through a 1mm wetsuit. The youngest of the French boys was contracted as our fly killer. He was very successful. I enjoyed a lovely sunset on the way to the cove. We had a steamed dinner that was amazing: lamb, pumpkin, and root veggies. Then everyone crashed out almost immediately.

The second day we moved to a little reef for some diving. Mike and I went with the two Germans in the first group. We saw a bunch of nudibranchs (sea slugs) of different varieties. They were a lot bigger and more beautiful than any I'd seen before. I know, sea slugs sound gross, but you're thinking sea cucumbers, which are freaky. I also saw a bumphead wrasse which is different from the parrotfish at the first stop. Unfortunately, the vis was terrible and we had a newbie diver with us. So, 35 mins later we were on the surface. This was annoying to me after three days of independent 50-60 minute dives. Oh well. The sailboat's dingy picked us up with a rope and handles tied to the back and dragged us back to the boat. We were facedown, kicking for stability, with our regulators in, so it was basically speed diving as I watched the reef zip by beneath me. I thought it was super fun. Under the boat, some huge gray angel fish were hanging out. Afterward, Emmy the divemaster and overall leader of the trip took two other groups of people scuba diving. The four of us from the first lot hung out in the sun on the front of the boat.

In the afternoon, everyone jumped into the water for some snorkeling. We saw some fishies, some clams, and just enjoyed being in the sunshine in our dorky wetsuits. We weren't allowed to dive more than a few feet due to risk of nitrogen in the blood after scuba diving. But I always love to be in the water.

We motored over to another cove for the night. It seemed to be the spot to be. We were surrounded by other catamarans and monohulls. Some of these are bareboat charters, others were tour boats. Our boat's personal amusement came from watching a boat called "Spank Me" sail past with a whole load of bros and maybe three or four girls. In the harbor we had a pasta dinner followed by crepes. Everyone started to make their way to bed. I heard splashing next to the boat and went to investigate. Like on the dive boat, the light was attracting plankton. This time, however, the plankton brought in squid. A giant trevally was feeding on the squid. If you know nothing about giant trevally, watch this video. Once the lights were out, the big fish disappeared and we watched bioluminescent squid inking their way all throughout the bay. The wind was blowing which meant pockets of bright, numerous stars opened above us. Occasionally a shooting star crossed the sky. This was one of those perfect moments I will remember forever.

The last day, two of the try divers went out for another dive. Mike and I swam from the boat to a little reef and did some free diving. We swam out with weight belts while the rest of the group was dropped off from the zodiac with pool noodles. Who lives in the water? *raises hand* The vis was again terrible, maybe 8 feet at best. I would lose sight of Mike almost immediately when he dove. We saw a sting ray, a really big silver fish, another bumphead wrasse, and a ton of gorgeous blue, green, and purple clams. The clams might have been my favorite thing. I know. It sounds lame, but they're like disco pretty.

We stopped at a pretty little island with a big sandbar and "hiked" up to an overlook. It was a pretty stop and nice to get off the boat for a minute.


From there, we packed up our cabin and sailed, yes, actually sailed, back to the harbor. I love sailing! I need to get better at it so that I can do a trip like this on my own schedule. The trip back in was lovely! Captain Greg who's been doing this for the past 30-something years gave us all the gossip on who owned which boat or mansion, how much they paid for it, etc. He's sailed almost every boat in that harbor. He was awesome!

We spent the night in Airlie and met up with all of the folks from the trip for drinks, dinner, and live music at a bar. It was really fun until they jacked the music up for the second live performance. After an hour of yelling at each other while the table worked through three pitchers of free beer, we left with our ears reverberating.

Part Three

Diving the Great Barrier Reef, Australia Part 1

Mike is officially old. He turned 40 this year. When I asked him what he wanted to do for his 40th birthday, he said, "I want to go sailing and diving." I looked around and found out we could do both in one of the most beautiful places in the world, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. I set everything up months ahead of time and we were able to use the holidays and Christmas closure of work to our advantage.

We flew from Honolulu to Sydney to Cairns. It was a long travel day, but we made time to hit a gym and restaurant between flights. That made the long hours in uncomfortable seats just a little better. I had planned in a day of buffer before leaving on a dive boat for three days and two nights. It was ridiculously hot that day. We walked the esplanade with it's lagoon (public pool) by the sea (apparently no one swims in the sea because of crocodiles and sharks), playgrounds, skate park, bouldering area and live musicians. What a cool place! There are cool sculptures here and there. Pelicans preened along the coast (side note: are they not seriously the weirdest birds? they can make their mouths turn inside out. Bizarre!) Colorful lorikeets flew everywhere being noisy and contentious. We must have seen 10-15 other varieties of birds.

Past the Esplanade is the Flecker Botanical Garden. It's a giant semi-cultivated wilderness area north of town. As we walked along under the trees, I saw what I thought would be a good picture. and started following what I thought was a slightly underutilized trail. Mike asked if I was sure this was a trail. I told him that it looked like one but I should probably remember I'm not in Hawaii anymore. Then I startled a snake and ran back the way I came yelling obscenities. Classy. I hate snakes. Remember this is Day One. Winning.

The next morning we woke to POURING rain. The bus for the dive boat picked us up promptly at 6:15 AM. After dropping our extra bag off at the dive shop, we boarded the boat with 31 other divers and snorkelers. We were assigned a cabin with a double bed right next to the galley. The ride out to the reef takes about three and a half hours. It was raining relentlessly and windy, so the seas were rough. Most of the folks on the boat were looking a little green by the time we arrived.

We did four dives the first day on Milln Reef. Jumping in the water after the boat ride was really great for relieving any sort of seasickness. We saw an enormous giant clam. I know that sounds reduntant, but it was a giant clam, and it was a REALLY big giant clam. Anyway, other things we saw: a cuttlefish (not cuddly, but alien), sting rays, a few turtles, some sharks, a thousand different fish, some fantastic coral, massive bumphead parrotfish, and a titan triggerfish that tried to beat up Mike. I noticed this attack and did what every good dive buddy should: took pictures. He had it handled.


The night dive the first day was amazing. The boat's lights attract plankton which attracts small fish which attract big fish which attract sharks. That's a whole lotta attraction right there. Mike and I opted to go for our own dive. While I was putting my fins on, a shark swam through my jump in point. I let Mike go first. See? Best dive buddy ever, right here. Dropping into the water was awesome! I was surrounded by big fish using my light to hunt. My beam caught the eyeshine of a gray reef shark and I watched it circle wide as I descended. I love night diving. My world shrinks to what I can see in my flashlight beam. I have very little trepidation or fear of what I can't see. In this case, what I couldn't see were likely a few sharks, lots of big fish and some pinchy things. Nothing too worrisome. One of my favorite things about diving at night is that shrimp have eyes that reflect red in a torch beam. That makes them easy to spot. They're really cool and everywhere. At one point, I looked down at a five foot whitetip reef shark who was hunting. He was right below me. Beautiful.

One of the cool things about this dive boat is that they teach you to use a compass, give a kick-ass dive brief and throw you in the water to do your thing. This teaches navigation skills as well as time/air management and gives a diver free rein to manage her own time. By the time the trip was over I was feeling really good about navigating my own dives. Mike and I were almost always first in the water and last or nearly last out of it. Because of that, dive sites never felt crowded and we never felt rushed. If we wanted 10 minutes to capture a cuttlefish or to chase around a school of bumphead parrotfish, no big deal.

The second day was Christmas. We woke up to dive right away. With the foul weather, the visibility in the water had deteriorated a lot. We went a different direction and explored a giant split "bommie" (meaning formation in the water). The split was this cool canyon thing full of seafans and featherstars. In perfect vis, it would have been unbelievable. It was still cool. When we came up for brekkie (side note: Australians LOVE to turn every noun into a shorter word and add ie to the end), we learned that the boat ahead of us had snapped their mooring line during the night because of the wind. Subsequently, they cancelled all dives for the day. So, we stayed put and did two dives around the split. The second dive had nothing for visibility, but was memorable because when we returned to the dive boat, we ascended through a huge bloom of moon jellyfish. They were everywhere, so thick that they could not be avoided. We were dressed head to toe in thin stinger suits, so were only affected on our faces. It was absolutely incredible.

In the afternoon, the weather was cooperating enough to move us to Flynn Reef. The dive we did there was my favorite of the day. It wound through lots of little bommies with swim-throughs and canyons to follow. The vis wasn't bad and we saw several turtles, stingrays, and woke up a sleepy whitetip. The colors, fish and coral were gorgeous! I loved it. The night dive was canceled "because the wind picked up", really it was Christmas night and the crew wanted to chill and have a drink. Can't blame them there. Pedro, the chef, cooked us up a fantastic Ham dinner with GF fruitcake and custard for dessert. Leighton, Ryan, Chris, James, and Mel, the dive masters and boat crew made up a trivia game and divided us into groups to play. We were all really bad at underwater and Australia trivia. BUT, my team won. Yeah! We won candy bars. I saved them for the train to Proserpine. It was a loud, really fun night with a bunch of strangers who felt like friends.

We woke up roasting during the night and found out it was due to 100 liters of jellies being sucked into the air conditioner condenser intake and clogging it. So crazy! The last day was really poor vis. We did three more dives on Flynn Reef. The most amazing thing we saw was a canyon full of the giant bumpheads. I swam under them and Mike swam behind. So cool!

The boat ride back was quiet and less tough than the way out. I napped the whole way. Being on a boat does that to me. We checked back into the hostel, took real showers (being able to shampoo and condition my hair was the best moment of the whole day), and met up with a bunch of folks at Bavarian Beerhouse for food and drinks. Ryan and James showed up and provided no end of entertainment. Ryan is a kiwi and all personality with entertaining small town party boy stories.

The next morning we boarded a train to Proserpine which is south of Cairns. Since we had 8 hours, we read, napped, watched movies, ate anything we could get our hands on. I watched the beautiful Queensland countryside flying by and even saw a wild kangaroo bouncing through a field. Cool! A bus took us to beautiful Airlie Beach where I talked Mike into a run on the boardwalk in the dark. So worth it. The boardwalk runs all along the coast past fancy resort condos and yacht harbors.

I was going to do all of Queensland in one post, but this is already ridiculously long. So, see Australia Post #2.

Diving video from GBR here: https://youtu.be/C1bfdsgpex0

Big Island Adventures

Last month Mike and I met up with Jeff and Lisa in Kona on the beautiful Big Island of Hawaii for a few days of adventures. We stayed on the west shores, mostly. Here are some of our super fun activities. Warning: for once this blog post is more pictures than words. I know, what is the world coming to? Let's start with one of the amazing sunsets we had from the dive boat. No, this is not proof the earth is flat, Go pro just loves to warp straight lines, like horizons.

1) We snorkeled Ke'alakua Beach. It's known for dolphins, but we didn't find any. What we did find were lots of fish, some really decent coral, a big moray eel, and a few abandoned masks I fished out of the water. Lisa also found an octopus. I can never find them.

2) One of the things I'd never done before was to hike to the green sand beach. The beach is on the south shores of the island and is covered in little bits of green volcanic glass. The result is a beach that glitters like tarnished gold. It is absolutely beautiful! Mike, of course, jumped in the water, but said the undertow was really strong so the rest of us camped out in a shady overhang for lunch. 

3) Mike and I did the Manta Ray dive when we visited Kona a few years back. it was epic and we couldn't wait to do it again. The first time we tried to go this trip, there was a bit swell, visibility and buoyancy were more wishes than actual conditions. So, we did one dive and watched a lovely sunset on the way back into the harbor. We rebooked for a few days later and I couldn't believe the first dive was the same reef. It was so bright, clear, and vibrant. We heard dolphins, saw garden eels, and all sorts of other creatures. The manta dive was not as exciting as the first time I went a few years ago. There were 5 rays but only one or two at a time came in to feed. The previous time I visited, there were 14 and it was like a ballet. This time was cool because the rays would come hover over us, which is apparently unusual. On the way out, Mike and I were slow heading back. I saw an articulated eel hunting and a perfect banded shrimp.

4) Blackwater diving is something I've wanted to do for a few years now. Mike and I saw pictures of cool little underwater aliens last time we were in Kona, but all of the dives were booked. Since Jeff didn't want to go, Mike agreed to stay with him and have a guys' night. So, Lisa and I went. We were both a little apprehensive since the dive requires driving the boat 3 miles off shore, tethering ourselves to 40' lines, and otherwise just hanging out in the dark with a tiny light. It was awesome! We saw all sorts of weird creatures big and small. I loved it. Andy, our dive master was fantastic and rescued a baby octopus we'd somehow brought back into the boat with us. The pictures below are from the sunset dives. My GoPro doesn't like the dark and so I didn't take it on the blackwater. Check out this video for cool stuff similar to what we saw.

5) We rented a 4Runner and drove up Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. Mauna Loa is a one lane winding gorgeous road through miles and miles of black lava rock. The road took us all the way up to 13200 feet at which a trailhead leads to the summit. We didn't hike because of the rain. It was chilly, foggy, and beautiful. Next we drove up Mauna Kea to see the telescopes. The original plan was to drive up and have a sunset picnic then go stargazing at the visitors center. Unfortunately the rain blocked our sky views. It was way cool to cruise around the telescopes though. Plus, no traffic! Whoop!

6) On our way out of town, we caught a gorgeous sunset over a lava flow. It was just a great trip of small adventures and spending time with family. Thanks Jeff and Lisa!

 

A Dose of Maui Sunshine

One of the most awesome things about living in Hawaii is how easy it is to island hop. From busy Oahu, I can be on lush Kauai or beautiful Maui in 30 minutes on an easy jumper flight. Each island has its own unique feel and personality. Oahu is the most crowded, but the big volcanic spine of the Ko'olau Mountains through the middle of the island keeps it full of intriguing wild spaces. Maui on the other hand feels like sunshine. It's energy is warm, serene, and wonderful. There are beautiful beaches, gorgeous reefs, and big mountains. Haleakala is the volcano in the middle of the island. While the rest of the island is green, Haleakala is barren with a moon scape at the top. One of these days, I will backpack across that crater.

This visit was with friends. We met Duane, Angie, and Taylor in the gorgeous west Maui coastal town of Lahaina. Mike and Duane were friends years ago in both the Army and civilian worlds. It's been really fun to reunite. Mike and I arrived early Saturday morning. We ate breakfast at the beautiful Sea House restaurant in Napili Bay. The restaurant is right on the water with big open windows and a fabulous view. We had the sweet potato frittata and Haleakala custard pancake. Both were gluten free and delicious.

Next we took a little hike up Mahana Ridge Trail. I thought I had read that it was a four mile roundtrip. Nope, that's Waihee Ridge. Oops. We ended up doing a nine mile roundtrip to the Arboretum. The full loop through the Arboretum adds and additional eight miles for a total of 17. I was not up for 17 miles. Our hike was fun though. We followed it up with some super tasty Mexican at Frida's Beach House. We split the Diego Plato with beef. It was super tasty and we were once again seated right on the water. However, the service was terrible and prices were very high. We stayed in a darling two bedroom condo close to everything in Lahaina. When our friends arrived, we took a walk to find dinner and entertainment for the night.

 

The next morning we had a dive trip to Lanai scheduled. At 0700, we boarded a boat and rode about 45 minutes to the neighboring island. On the way, we had to stop to watch whales jumping and playing in the ocean. Two even swam very close to our boat. So cool! The diving was ok. Visibility was over 100 feet and there were lots of swim-throughs and fish. I saw a huge lobster and a turtle. What made it not amazing was the number of divers on the trip. There were three groups of nine divers all hitting the same sites at the same time. The sites aren't big, so there weren't a lot of areas to enjoy without others bumping into you. The second site was First Cathedral which is a big cavern under the water. It's stunningly beautiful with light streaming in through smaller "windows". Again, ten people (a photographer had joined us) packed into a small space under water is not my favorite way to experience it. I think I was just spoiled rotten in Truk with our small dive groups. Lahaina Divers is a top notch company and provides muffins, sandwiches, chips, fruit and chocolate chip cookies. I had chips and fruit, but the guys loved the cookies. After everyone showered, napped and drank wine, we had a BBQ by the pool in the common area of the condos.

Our final morning we all hiked up to the Lahainaluna High School "L". This is only a 3ish mile hike if you know where you're going. We turned it into a 5.5 mile hike complete with GPS and drone reconnaissance to get us there. We'd gone the wrong way around a new solar power plant (which hadn't existed when the directions were written). So, adventure route, which I like. The path down was well marked except for right at the beginning. It also smelled wonderful. The trail wound down through lemon gum eucalyptus trees. Reading more about the hike, we may have been trespassing. Whoops!

Duane, Mike and I went spearfishing at Hanakao'o Park. We rented guns and went with a local guide. Keoki was awesome, but the price wasn't worth it to me. We go at home for free. So I struggle with paying someone to swim with me and put my fish in a bag. That's ok. We had a great time. I saw a bunch of octopi and almost caught one! We swam with a big eagle ray. I shot three fish, but one got away. Duane also shot three fish. The first was a porcupine or puffer fish and blew up like a spiky balloon. It was hilarious! Mike was unlucky but had a good time anyway.