Fishing off the Gold Coast

As a farewell gift, my employer offered me a fishing trip. Since everyone who wanted to come is usually on a plane, we had to wait 2 months to find a spot in everyone's calendar. Turns out this day was probably the worst day to go after pelagic fish. Too much rain had cooled the water so the marlin stayed waaaay off shore and there was too much food in the water to get any fish really interested. I did catch a nice Dolphin fish though. 

Problem: I can't end the season like this so I have to go again. :)

Baby Seals

We drive up the coast from Kaikoura and find a small pool, about 10m by 10m full of... drum roll... baby seals. Their cuddliness is off the chart and they seem to be perpetually playing.

Emma, Kieran and myself jump back as one emerges from the water and comes running at us. Turns out all it wanted is to say "Hi, I'm a baby seal, whatchadoin?" After a quick look around we conclude mum is out fishing so: I take Kieran on my arm and get closer to the seals, one comes out of the water and I manage to touch it. Kieran loves it. Further up there is a waterfall with a good dozen of other baby seals. Very cool indeed. We can only hope not too many people will discover this place before the authorities have to close it down, or make it payable.

Awesome.

Merry Christmas

Yeah, that's a real Koala. 

Just check those claws, Emma is smiling but I could hear her say "iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii"

Merry Christmas everyone.

Dolphin swim (bad weather)

Emma booked our swim with dolphins months back and now, the day is here. Yay. Unfortunately there's a 35 knot wind that could blow off the hair of a man's head. So swimming is recommended only for 'very experienced swimmers'. Right, well we didn't come across the Tasman sea to miss an opportunity like this, but still that sea looks pretty angry.
After a rollercoaster ride on the boat to get to the dolphins we find ourselves in the water, a soothing 12C warm. It feels like a million needles are viciously being jabbed in my head. But that doesn't matter: there they are: the dolphins. We swim and play with them. They swim circles around us as we dive down. They jump out of the water they are beautiful.
We even see 2 mums bringing their babies to show the babies some very slow moving creatures.

Town of 1770

For Emma's birthday I had decided to take her to Town of 1770. And, as usual - as I organise the trip -  the 'bad-weather-bassie' curse strikes again. This time it even scares the captain of our boat that took us to the Great Barrier Reef.

Yep: Emma took the auxiliary to go fishing off the reef when black clouds rolled in from the coast. The Captain starts running - If there's one thing that gets me nervous it's running captains -  and we see all the birds fly back to the Island ready to hide for the storm that is about to be unleashed. Emma makes it back - barely -  with her soaked fishing party and crew scramble to tie down all the gear. It only lasts for about 45 minutes, but man, this was a vicious storm. We enjoy some Canoeing, the millions of soldier crabs and the good weather. 

Ekka Day

Scaring the living crap out of our son has become some sort of a sport. Nothing mean or bad, really, but taking him out of his comfort zone and having him experience as many things as possible is actually turning out to be fun. >:o)

So how about a ride where the minimum age is 5?

U.S. Trip

Well, it was time to fly across the ditch again to the U.S. This time it was a new record: Brisbane --> Los Angeles --> Santa Rosa --> Detroit --> Syracuse --> Washington Dulles --> Los Angeles --> Brisbane. All of that in 10 days. I guess my new boss wanted to kick the tires and see if I would fall apart when given a challenge.

Well, I almost did: on the Syracuse --> Dulles leg of the trip the plane's landing gear came down,

1. With a thud  -- No worries
2. Went up again! -- Slightly worried
3. About 50 meters above the landing strip the Pilot floored it -- Lightly nervous
4. And we found ourselves circling 5000 foot up wondering what was going on. -- Nervous
5. After 40 minutes of testing flaps, throttle, landing gear, control surfaces etc. -- Slightly scared
6. The pilot reminded us that if we needed to review any safety measures our safety card was in the pocket of the seat in front of us. -- Scared
7. He added: We expect an uneventful landing and the stewardess looked like she'd just soiled herself -- Really Scared.
8. As the plane came down for the second attempt, the last few meters -- Scared the shit outta me!
9. And the plane landed with no problems. -- Cool bananas + poker face.