Emigrated to Australia

Wednesday, 17 March 2010

Whitsundays Pictures

	Couldn't get enough so we hopped on a small Cat.
	Now that is a pancake stack!
	Breakfast at Hamilton Island and some of the locals
	Breakfast at Hamilton Island and some of the tourists
	The only means of transport on the entire Island is by... Golf cart.
	Pool + Bar + Cocktails + Sun = :)
	Our UpYourKilt sailboat
	One of the islands we visited
	Whitehaven beach
	3 feet
	Flying Baby at Whitehaven
	Wanna go for a swim?

G'day mate, so you're going to jump out of a perfectly good plane? The guy is huge and has wild eyes. This will be my 13th jump, he says. Lucky number 13!, the other instructor adds and continues with a story of an unfortunate chain of events of a mate's mate that did an imitation of a floor-pizza on his 13th jump.
Emma is doing her usual: Woohoo's! while we get explained how we might have a remote chance not to turn into pavement spaguetti if we follow a few particulary intriquite instructions.

The next thing I remember is hearing READY?! 3! 2! 1! GO! a push and all of the sudden nothing but air rushing not past me, sssssssSSSSSHHHH!!!! after about 20 seconds of hurling way too fast to earth the chute opens and we are flying.

I get to control the chute and we go into a cork screw twist, yeeeehaaa. After landing I can hear Emma Screaming (she jumped 4,000 foot higher) she has explainded to the instructor she wanted to be thrilled. Guess she got what she asked for. They perform a couple of what I can only describe as triple 72 twist, barrell back flip, killer loop olly salto's.

Mega-Manue is a billabong sky-diver
Nice!

Tuesday, 2 March 2010

Smooth Sailing

The wind is just fantastic it seems to be blowing from the correct direction wherever we go. The water temperature is 29.7C and it is partly cloudy so we don't get too much sun burn. We sail past the kilometres long Whitehaven beach in one tag. We get the occasional excitement when the winds whip up a bit: Emma steers the ship into heavy seas and big waves crash all around us. Alan shouts out 'Take it easy Em!' Emma replies: ‘don't worry you won't get wet’. To which Alan replies, ‘it's not the wet I'm worried about, it's the living!’

The sea is rough, and we do not insist. Hamilton Island is our next course; with the wind in our backs and sun in our face.

Monday, 1 March 2010

ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz!

The mere mention of the word 'Banana' was enough to see Alan plunge head first in our boat's fridge. Emma, the startled owner, stood by helplessly watching Alan extract and then hurl out the offending piece of fruit into the sea.
With wild eyes, a threatening pose and a sudden pirate accent he yelled: "yar! be there anyone else with banana's on this vessel"... "Well?! be there?". 'What about: Banana muffins, Banana Bread, BananaBoat sunscreen, underwear with a banana logo, WHAT ABOUT A BANANA SHAPED USB STICK?'... he asked while inspecting each one of us closely.
Seeing a knife, a fish hook and a clubbing bat at hands reach, I refrained to mention that I'd just drank a banana-mango juice and eaten a banana muffin for breakfast. I quickly reached for chewing gum trying to get the possible banana smell out of my mouth.
No, Alan is not a bananaphobe nor has he a banana-hatred disposition. It is a well known fact that Bananas bring bad luck on a fishing vessel. Most fellow fishermen, captains and crews know this and agree that one should never have or admit to having had any type of banana-contact in the 24 hours prior to a fishing trip.
We've been trolling for two days and are beginning to wonder if the banana curse hit us? When all of the sudden: Zzzzzzzzzzzz!. Ahh the sweet sound of a fish taking off with the line. This is no small fish, it's a 6-7 kgs yellow fin tuna or big eye tuna and they know how to fight.
I'm struggling to get it closer to the boat, but every time I see the silver torpedo through the waves it takes off... Zzzzzzzzzzzzz!
After about half an hour it gives up. We're having tuna steak tonight! Fresh as you can get them. Our Omega 3 levels are maxed out. Deeeelicious! And eh, o yeah, that is a bottle Chateau Neuf du Pape. Best dinner ever!
Despite the abundance of banana produce on board, we caught another nice yellow fin tuna, but this time we released it.

UpYerKilt!

Our ship is called UpYerKilt! Which we rapidly adapt to a toast.

The instructions are being fired at a stressed Uzi rate and I manage to catch about 3% of the information. Charter Yacht Australia personified by Wendy is explaining us how to sail this ship.
Once out of the harbour we put up sails and... Hit a white out at 25+ knots of wind.
Nervous looks go back and forth until we realise no one really got anything of what was said. By then the nervous looks change to stress. We can't see where we're going, or where we've been. For about 10 mins we navigate blind. Then, the rain settles and we quickly get the hang of it and sail the boat really sharply for an island we think is Hook Island. By now we're having fun!
We realise Hook Island is actually not the Island we were aiming for and decide to give the boat another good spanking. She lists sharply and I reckon we had her up to 8 knots. Now this is sailing!

Sunday, 21 February 2010

Whitsundays

The Whitsundays are considered the most magnificent islands on the Australian coast. Anybody who is anybody comes here to enjoy the Austral Caribbean as they are sometimes called.

Basically a buckshot on the map, the archipelago is comprised of 78 islands. Our mission: go and see them all. Emma Kieran and I just landed last night from Townsville and we are packing for an early departure: destination Proserpine, Whitsundays coast.

The Whitsundays were first sighted by... you've guessed it... Captain Cook on... you've guessed it... Whit Sunday. (Didn't I mention he was running out of inspiration?)

One of the highlights will be Whitehaven Beach, a perfect white beach pure silica with clear waters.

Magnetic Island

Magnetic Island was named after captain Cook sailed passed it and noticed his compass behaved oddly. Having named a thousand inlets, islands, billabongs, bays he was out of inspiration and came up with Magnetic Island. As I told you before, anything with more than three syllables here in Australia gets shortened to a one syllable word plus the 'ie' suffix. So Magnetic Island is called Maggie.

It's a wonderful ride by Cat, the water is downright hot 30C and the breeze feels like a blow-dryer. I love it! We rent a 4x4 and drive to a very secluded beach, take Kieran swimming again and spot the rare Rock Wallabies. If you want to chill and come to a general feeling of total relaxation, then Maggie will get you there in less than one day. I'd rename it to sleepy island.

Townsville

I love Townsville! It's your average tropical town by the sea. Most Australians will frown if you say you're going to Townsville in the summer, but I dig it.

Emma chose to fly us out there. It's Kieran's 10th flight and he is getting used to it. Hurricane Olga is pounding the northern and mid-coast so we watch the news attentively. By the time we get there all is quiet and it's a warm 99% humidity and 30C. We take Kieran Swimming in the 30C (!) sea.

Summer Relaxing

Between getting our stuff ready to go to Townsville (given for to me on Christmas) and the Whitsundays (we will sail our own boat) and settling in our new house, we have found a bit of time to relax.

Tuesday, 2 February 2010

Kinda busy lately

I can state with a considerable amount of certainty that the human body can sweat from every square centimetre except the nails.

It is absolutely bone crushing hot, and moving houses in this heat makes you lose liters of water. Hell, I was watching television sipping on a cold brewsky and I was still sweating.

Our new home is out in the Burbs. We still have access to a pool and a tennis court. The house is a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 3 toilets, with a garage and a small garden.
Kinda cool.

So in the past 2 months, I have flown to Sydney twice, to Melbourne, to Prt Macquarie, we have Cleaned the old home, found a new home and moved. Emma has started working again, we have bought the stuff we needed, planned 2 holidays (going this Friday yeeehaaaa), celebrated Christmas, New Year's eve and have found time to play with our new toy: Kieran.

Now that I am able to find a few minutes per day for myself, I promise to write at least once a day.