Mike Ball..finally

Okey dokey!

Well i guess its time i (James) finally got round to writing about our week's expedition on the "Mike Ball Dive Expeditions" live-a-board which we did 6 weeks ago. I'm rubbish at this writing business :D

After settling into a sailors life the first night (champagne, cheese & wine, fruit, 3 course meal, light alcoholic beverages...erm, thats a sailors life right?), we were up and diving the next morning after a relaxed full english breakfast (the food was the best bit on this boat, forget the diving!).

That day we did 4 dives all with nearly full coral cover (particularly Acropora palmata for those interested), plenty of Giant Clams of all colours, puffer fish and large barracuda. Visability was good, the dive operation was a well oiled machine with an 'open deck' which allowed you to dive as much or as little as you wanted.

We didnt manage to get out to Osprey reef as, despite that October was supposed to the calmest month, we were looking at the prospect of +30knot winds at an exposed reef 90miles off the coast. So we stayed protected inside the GBR.

Katy successfully completed her Enriched Air (Nitrox) course so we could spend longer underwater 'cus we just couldnt get enough when we were down there. We both also completed our Underwater Naturalist courses with an awsome/mental/mildly schizophrenic/slightly unbalanced chap called Laurence we seemed to know more about the marine life than the whole of Blue Planet and more.

Essentially, we dived a whole load of other awsome sites, those particularly worth mentioning include Acropolis - the whole site was 100% covered with table coral of many different colours; Code Hole - which is home to the giant Potato Cods (~2m), a few easily viewed white tip reef sharks and considerable current amongst other things; Steve's Bommie - with all the different types of anemone fish in one place, lion and scropion leaf fish, stone fish and the sweetest little baby white tip i've ever seen, can't have been more than 2ft and looked rather weary of a 2m nemo shoving its ugly face next to it.

There were also many other dive sites and some cool night dives as well, with pleatny of cuttlefish (i love cuttlefish, incredible creatures!!), nudibranchs, pygmy sea horses, white tip & black tip and grey reef sharks, lobsters, giant puffer fish and some crazy little Flame File Shells which look like they are conducting electricity.

We also met some great people on board, passangers and crew alike, ate delicious food everyday and had a lot of fun.

S.S Yongala

Hi!

I hope everyone at home is well. So many people have been complaining about the cold and snow via facebook. My head gets confused whenever I realise that it's November and I'm sitting in 33 degree heat. Hmmm.

Anyway, I'll stop annoying you all =) 2 days ago we drove back up to Ayr so that we could dive the S.S Yongala. I didn't like Ayr the first time, and this visit compounded my dislike of the place. We went to a pub and ordered some food, which was given to some Japanese people. When we asked where our food was they got really angry and grudgingly agreed to actually feed us, however they had run out of what we'd ordered. Grrr. Keeping the 2 of us away from food when we're hungry really isn't a good idea. Luckily they survived to tell the tale. While we were eating I was convinced this guy was staring at me, but I wasn't sure if it was paranoia. I went to the toilet and as I came out he was standing outside the door and told me that he wished he'd been in there with me. Charming. I mumbled something and we scarpered. Nice place. I think the gene pool is perhaps a little shallow there.

We went to see Quantum of Solace (James had been particularly excited about this) but were both a bit disappointed. Well.. at least we got to see some exciting flashy action. We parked Betty up in the middle of the road as we had last time. I went to the public loos to brush my teeth, and was followed in by some drunk aboriginal teenagers who were banging on the doors and shouting at me. Legged it back to Betty and spent a very hot and restless night. I don't think we'll be going there again!

We set off in the morning for Alva Beach to get to the dive shop. There was a really strong wind and we were worried that it would be called off, but they decided it would be ok and we got into the boat in the early afternoon. A very rough journey of 40ish minutes got us to the dive site. Immediately it was obvious it wasn't going to be easy, with a really strong current and 2-3m swells. As soon as we got in the water I realised these would be the most challenging dives I've done. We descended down the line (hanging on for grim death otherwise we'd end up in New Zealand) and made our was down to the wreck at about 25m. The life on the wreck was incredible, everything seemed to be much bigger than on the reefs I've dived and the sheer amount of fish was overwhelming. To begin with we swam into the current, which I found really difficult. At one point I realised that I was swimming as hard as I possibly could and was making no headway. I managed to grab James and flail around to signal that, so we split off and started to head back. The journey back to the stern of the wreck was rather easier as you can imagine and it was the fastest drift dive I've ever done! Just behind us as we reached the line was a 3m Bull shark. Eek! As we were doing our safety stops on the line an eagle ray came up just below us and hovered for a few minutes. We were both really excited to see it - I've never seen one before and it was beautiful! We both returned to the boat with 30Bar of air left and feeling pretty tired.

After a one hour surface interval we were back in the water. Again the dive was much the same in terms of current. This time we saw a huge Loggerhead turtle (and many smaller ones) and several olive sea snakes. This time when we were doing our safety stops, two absolutely enormous Marbled rays came gliding around. I would the larger of them to have been pushing 3m across, but it's hard to tell. Incredible. Another tiring haul along the rope brought us back up on the boat. I could hardly move when I got back on the boat.

The Yongala was a steamship that sunk in a cyclone in 1911. She was built in Newcastle (hurray!) and then taken to Australia. If you're interested in reading about the history of the wreck it's all on the website that I put in the last blog.

The journey home was definitely one to remember. The swells had grown in size and it was getting dark. We were travelling in a metal boat with a large fuel tank and several tanks of both compressed oxygen and air. Directly into a raging lightning storm. Fantastic! As you can tell we made it back to shore alive by about 8pm. We made our way back to Airlie in Betty and collapsed into bed.

Today James has headed to Whitehaven beach to check it our for himself while I'm recovering. My hands and shoulders are really sore from hauling myself on the rope and because of an old injury to my left elbow, that has swollen up a bit. However, there's no way I would've missed those dives so no complaints here! Tomorrow we're off for some diving here, and then on Tuesday we're finally saying goodbye to Airlie and heading on down the coast. We'll be doing a 4x4 jeep safari on Fraser island next weekend which we're both looking forward to.

Sorry for the length of this one! I hope that you all get a bit of warmth soon!

Katy x

The end of an era?

So.. we're coming to end of our stay at Airlie! Some good news first... James is now a fully qualified PADI Instructor! After 2 weeks of hard work and 2 days of exams the boy has passed and I'm very proud of him =)

What's next? Hopefully we'll be heading up to Ayr to dive the Yongala (http://www.yongaladive.com.au/) which will be amazing, but is somewhat weather dependent as the wreck is completely unprotected. We're also hoping to possibly go out on a dive boat for a few days around here. After that we'll be heading south to Fraser Island for a few days.

I haven't been up to much since I last updated. Bruce came visiting on Sunday (driving 15 hours up from Brisbane!). We went on a bit of an adventure on Monday around the local area, and then on Tuesday we went over to Whitehaven beach to chill out for the day while James was doing a first aid course. The beach itself has a high content of silica in the sand so squeaks when you walk on it (but not as loudly as the beaches in Salvador). It was absolutely perfect weather for it too. Lucky me!

Bruce left this morning to head up to Cairns for work. James finished his first aid course today and we're just getting our stuff together to get back on the road with Betty in the next few days.

Much love to all at home!

Katy x

Airlie Beach

Hi all!

Just a quick update to confirm that we're alive. I haven't been up to much apart from reading and swimming in my private pool. It's a hard life really. Looks like we're going for a meal with our neighbours Wayne and Jane (!) this evening at the Hog's Breath Cafe. A relief at last from my cooking =)

Katy x

Airlie Beach

Hi! So... here we are in Airlie Beach, our home for at least the next 2 weeks.

The story since we last spoke. We met up with Chiara (James' italian friend) in the afternoon and just hung around in Cairns. A really nice girl with some pretty funny expressions. They realised that they'd only ever met each other in the southern hemisphere, despite both living in Europe. We camped outside Mike Ball Dive Expeditions on Lake Street in Cairns, a very classy place to stay with public toilets a mere wander away.

We left in the morning and headed up to Kuranda. Most people go up there via a cablecar but we're cheap so we drove there. We wandered around for a little while and had lunch. Betty made a mess all over the carpark so we drove away quickly to avoid embarrassment. Headed down to Mareeba and on my suggestion made our way to the wetlands. The road there was unsealed, and was not all that good for poor old Betty, but we persevered and got there. Well worth it in the end. An absolutely stunning reserve and completely unexpected in the middle of the scrub surrounding it. Lots of birdlife and a crazy little frog.

After we were done there we headed down to Yungaburra. What an odd place. Imagine Haltwhistle in the middle of nowhere and then add some more inbreeding. We parked up at the Bruce Jones Market Place carpark and stayed there for the night. While I was on the phone to mum to find out about her broken collarbone (poor mum) I saw a tree kangaroo climbing about on a telegraph pole. Ace =) We went to the pub and were the only 2 people there. The barman was slowly getting drunk in the corner and at first seemed to resent us for entering. We had one drink and scarpered!

The next morning we headed to Millaa Millaa falls - stunning - and then drove the waterfall circuit around there. James hurt his ankle and it was a bit touch and go for a minute but thankfully it was ok, so no worries. Ruined his chance for a swim though which was a real shame.
We took the decision to head to Undara lava tubes which was a bit of a mission through the tablelands and into the outback. It wasn't helped by the fact that we took the wrong road for 42km.... meaning a backtrack of 42km. Whoops. This wouldn't normally have been a problem except it meant that we ended up driving at dusk. This is when the kangaroos, emus, cattle, wild pigs and other large creatures become active and hang out on the roads. Not something you want to hit, and we'd seen enough roadkill to know that there were a LOT of animals out here. Luckily we saw very little and made it there in one piece.

We were up early in the morning to see the lava tubes which were bigger than any I'd seen in other places. Pretty amazing structures. We had a long drive to Mission Beach (where James spent 5 weeks before I arrived) and camped out there next to the beach. I created a gourmet meal on bangers and mash, widening James' culinary experiences considerably, and we both promptly fell asleep. So much for the big night out!

Another trip to a waterfall followed - Wallaman falls, the highest in Australia. Again, another long drive to get there but it was beautiful. Unfortunately the marsh flies were too much for us and after many expressions of annoyance (such as 'gosh, these flies are annoying') we were forced away. Drove all the way to Ayr and spent a night parked up on the street. We went to the cinema (civilisation!) and watched a pretty stupid film called Step brothers.

Yesterday we made our way down the coast to Airlie, with a stop at a wonderful beach in Bowen on the way. We're living in a little flat next to the centre where James is doing his course. There's only one or two cockroaches =) It's nice to have some space to stretch out. I'm going to be spending a lot of time by the lagoon reading over the next 2 weeks....