Whitsunday Islands part 2

Figured it didn't make any sense to keep naming the posts after the dates when that's not what they're about...
Anyway, unfortunately no pictures today, as I promised. For some reason I can't upload pictures, so I'll be adding the pictures tomorrow, sorry guys.

So, last update was Friday and Saturday, naturally this update will be... Sunday! (/cheer)
Anyway, our first morning at the hotel. We didn't know exactly when breakfast is on, so we got up at 6.00, to get to breakfast at 6.30 (we found out the next day, that we didn't have to get up that early... breakfast ended at 9.00 or something).
Anyway, after breakfast we had a little while to get ready for todays trip: Knuckle Reef Lagoon!

All right... so there are a FEW pictures, but none I took. All from Cruise Whitsundays own website

No, I wasn't in the helicopter (they didn't actually have  any out there that day), and no... the food didn't actually look that good... oh well, that was to be expected. Anyway, the place looked absolutely awesome, in the brochures AND in real life.

Back on track. We left from the hotel around 8 or so, I think. Been so long I can't remember anything anymore... horrible. At the habour, we waited for 15 minutes or so, till we could all board the boat, Cruise Whitsundays (great name, eh...?) The boat was pretty big, but there were a lot of people on it. The people on the boat (or ferry... maybe?) were the only people that were gonna be on the pontoon.

As soon as we started sailing, some guy gave us a short briefing. It was pretty funny. I forgot why, but he made a lot of jokes about Irish people. He was Irish himself, I think. It was fun anyway. He told us, that after the briefing, the dive-masters would come around and talk to the people who wanted to do scuba diving at the reef. The prices, $100 for a certified dive, $50 for second dive, and $110 for an introduction dive, which required no previous scuba diving experience. All ten of us, who had a certificate, wanted to dive of course. So, we filled out the forms, paid the $100, and went upstairs to get briefed.

The dive-masters were all pretty cool, probably around... 25 years or so. At least that's what they looked like. There were other people who wanted to dive as well, but we were split into groups of three, so only one group got with a non-Dane. I was with Mathis and Patrick. We had heard from our scuba diver instructor, that the visibility could be up to 40m+. Unfortunately, the day before, it had been very windy, so the visibility was only around 15m. Pretty disappointing really... the dive was great anyway!

We were told, that we had to be the first in the water, but everybody else was told the same:P We were pretty fast in the water though. Onto the pontoon as fast as possible, get a wetsuit on, get to the gear, and they pretty much put the gear on you, damn it was fast. Then down a staircase under the pontoon, get with your group, and time to swim off. The water was great, except for the relatively low visibility. There were a lot of corals everywhere. They weren't as colourful as what you see on TV, but we didn't bring any light down there, and the water was, as mentioned before, a little murky. We went down to about 15m, I think and we stayed down for around 45minutes. I had enough air for another 15minutes, but we had to get up anyway. Apparently Birk, another guy from the class, had run completely out of air... and blamed it on him having to keep and eye on the rest of his group all the time...

Anyway, I have a lot of pictures from the dive, that I got from Patrick, who brought a camera. They're pretty okay, I guess, but due to the particles floating in the water, he couldn't use the flash without getting even murkier pictures. Oh well. The rest of the time on the pontoon was spent relaxing, snorkeling, riding the water-slide, going on trips in the semi-sub  and the glass bottom boats.

I would loved to have gone snorkeling, but after the dive, I had some problems with my ears. They were kinda hurting, like when you can't equalize properly. I'm guessing it was because of my little accident (or walkabout, as most classmates might call it:P). We were floating above some corals, looking at him picking stuff up, and handing it to us. I had established neutral buoyancy (I floated, did not have to keep swimming to get up or down), but suddenly, without touching the BCD or my weights, I began rising to the surface. Pretty quickly even (which can be pretty dangerous). I tried emptying the BCD, but it didn't slow me down enough, so my head broke the surface of the water. Having emptied the BCD, I got down again pretty quickly as well (though I filled it up a bit on the day down, to avoid going too fast), which can also be dangerous! I think that's what might've caused my ears to hurt... I spend most of the remainder of the day on the top of the boat, just talking with people. Was pretty damn warm that day, so I tried to find a place in the shade, though that was pretty hard...

We were back at the harbour at around 5-5.30, I believe, so back at the hotel, we had a little time in the pool/spa, and then time for dinner again. I got pasta again... people cheated... and sorbet for desert again! Oh well...

So, with no scuba diving the day after, I could drink without the risk of dying the day after... just beer, though it was kinda expensive. Oh well, it was good. VB is now my 2nd favourite beer!

Until next time (tomorrow...) see ya /wave!

New updates tonight!

Yus! Time for new updates again. Will be doing part two of the Whitsunday update, adding pictures, and linking to a slideshow of some pictures from downunder, that most of you probably havent't seen.

Oh, and TAFE wouldn't lend me a computer... apparently they have to reconfigure it. So the laptops are only for staff. Too bad. Gonna have to use Dulcies laptop

Whitsundays Part 1

Well, guess I'd better start doing those Whitsunday/Goldcoast updates. I still don't have my pictures, but the ones are I have, are pretty similar to those most of you will be able to see on Facebook. I'm starting to forget some of the details, so I'm writing it all down, before I forget it.

Whitsunday Holiday, part 1
We left Friday 18th September, at 20.30 (I think), from TAFE. All 27 students, 1 teacher, her husband, her son and the bus driver, so 31 people total. We probably didn't leave till around 20.50, took time for everybody to show up, get the bus packed, check that everybody was there and such. Finally we got going... we had a 10-11h ride ahead of us.

Fortunately for everybody, there was a TV in the bus, and a DVD player. We had been told that beforehand, so some people had brought DVD's. There were actually some pretty nice ones between them. The one most people wanted to watch, though, was Mama Mia! I had never seen the movie before, and ABBA music is decent, I guess. The movie was okay as well, but not really my kind of movie. I forgot what other movies we watched... it's not really important either:P

Our first stop was in North Rockhampton, or maybe just Rockhampton, at around 01.00. Don't think I slept much before that, maybe a couple of minutes. Even though I had two seats to myself, they weren't exactly comfortable... I always forget to bring a pillow. I've gotta learn sometime... anyway, I guess bus rides are supposed to be like that, at least when it comes to school trips.

The bus was pretty cold as well, so it was actually nice to get out of the bus in Rockhampton. It was much warmer outside, than it was inside the bus. Of course, I had also forgotten to bring a jacket. I asked the bus driver to turn up the heat, and he did. It didn't help much though, was still pretty cold where I sat. The stop in Rockhampton was 30minutes, so we only had time to go to the bathroom, buy some stuff in shop and have a breather outside, before it was back on the road again.

I've already forgotten where the next stop was, but I think it was about 04.00. The place we stopped this time was a lot smaller, and the bathroom a lot smellier. Think we stayed there for... 20minutes or so. My head was a little fuzzy, I was pretty damn sleepy, cold, and my back hurt. The rest of the way to Airlie Beach, I kinda just... dozed off every now and then, and woke up again almost immediatly, which made me even more tired.

We finally reached Airlie Beach at around 08.00 or so. We couldn't get into the hotel that early, so the bus driver (he's called Mike btw) took us a little further, down to the shops and such, so we could get some breakfest. Most of us ate at a little cafe. I bought a yoghurt and a cappuccino... tasted great. We spent a little while at the cafe, just chatting, and waiting for the bus to go back to the hotel.

Once we got back to the hotel, we dumped our luggage in a room, and jumped in the pool/spa. We spend the time, until we could get our rooms, in the pool. When we got our rooms (I lived with Jesper and Magnus), we threw our stuff inside, and went back to the pools. Spend most of the day there, until dinner time. 3 times dinner at the hotel was included in the price we paid before we came, and the first night was one of them. Main court: pasta (the pasta was horrible) or Steak. We couldn't choose what we wanted. Everybody wanted steaks, and nobody would admit that they had even voted for the pasta... lame. The desert was nice though. Sorbet or mud cake (I never got to taste the mud cake... greedy basterds eating it 3 times in a row). The sorbet was great.

I don't remember what we did for the rest of the day, but I don't think we did much. I know we didn't drink (some did, but I didn't), 'cause we were going to a huge pontoon the day after, and some of us were going scuba diving.

So, that's the end of the first part. The second part will come pretty soon, so stay tuned!

Oh btw, GW guys, I'll try to get online as soon as possible. If I can't, I'll have Jonas or my brother do it. My computer isn't gonna get fixed, I'm currently using Dulcie's (my homestay) laptop, and tomorrow in school, I'm gonna talk to Angie about lending a TAFE PC. They don't usually lend them out, but they might make an exception this time.

See ya /wave

PSP!!!

So... my laptop is still broken. Took it to a shop last Friday, they couldn't fix it 'cause it is a laptop. They told me to contact HP, unfortunatly the warranty has expired, so it will most likely be pretty darn expensive. I haven't contacted them yet. I ordered a new one though. A netbook this time, HP mini 5something. Costs $235.45 + $21 for shipping. Pretty cheap. Ordered it yesterday, so it will probably show up late this week or early next week. In the mean time I'll use the school pc's and my psp

Broken laptop

Yea, my laptop broke. It's a hardware error, most likely. When I turn it on, the screen turns on, but doesn't show anything. Going to take my laptop to a shop this Friday, as this is pretty much the only day I have time. Gonna ask how much I'd cost to make them check what the error is (personally, I'm guessing the graphics card, as I've been having trouble with that lately). Not gonna tell them to repair/replace it, before I find out how much it costs. If it costs too much... I'll probably buy a netbook instead, and figure out a way to connect my old harddrives to it, to transfer the stuff.

Unfortunatly, having no laptop means that I won't be on msn much, won't be on GW at all, and that the Whitsunday/Goldcoast updates have been postponed, until I know more. It sucks, big time. And I just found out that I haver less money on my account than I thought! Damn Visa... Whitsunday and Goldcoast was expensive. Anyway, maybe I'll see you on msn, maybe not. I'll be checking Facebook every now and then anyway, so that will most likely be the best option of getting in contact with me.
Sorry

Delay D:

Sorry 'bout the delay everybody. Been busy with Whitsunday and Goldcoast lately. I'll be updating with pictures tomorrow. Just got back from a more than 5 hours long bus ride.

September 15th, 2009

A day late with the update it seems. I either forgot, or was too  lazy yesterday, you pick:P

Anyway, this time, I've got a few pictures from the Whale Watching trip. Not pictures I've taken myself, but pictures taken by a classmate, Kasper Madsen. My mobile/camera ran out of power, so couldn't really take any pictures. I'll see if I can get hold of some more later. So, here're the pictures:

These pictures aren't really that great (sorry Kasper, even if I know you're not reading this^^), but at least they show a couple of whales. So, yea, the whale watching trip was pretty good. Except the fact that we had to get up pretty early, but at least got some food on the ship. I can't remember the exact time that we left, but we were home at about 14. We saw lots of whales, even if we had to go pretty far out to see them. We saw whales chasing each other, swimming under the boat, waving, "jumping", smashing their tails into the water, and we even saw a small group of whales with a calf as well. The captain told us we were lucky... I guess they say that to all groups they take whale watching. A few people got seasick as well. Even some of those that had taken pills. I felt fine though. Never had trouble with seasickness, sailing is fun:P
So, as everybody who goes on whale watching has been told, and as most people who's heard of whale watching knows, you're supposed to wave/jump/yell/whatever when whales are close, to keep them interested. I guess it's to make them do tricks... when you look at all those people on the boat waving and yelling at the whales... I'm not sure who's making who do tricks. It worked though. Our boat yelled the loudest, so we drew a group of whales from another whale watching boat, to our own boat. It still seems ridiculous to me, but heck, it was fun anyway.
I don't really know what there's left to tell you about the whale watching. It was a pretty cool experience, but it was kind of what I expected, and nothing spectacular really happened, but whale watching is one of the things you have to do if you're in Hervey Bay in the whale season

Next topic, scuba diving.
It's awesome. As I mentioned last time, we finally got in touch with Steve and got our Open Water Dives planned last week. So, last weekend we went diving. We were split in two teams. One that went diving early both days, and one that went late both days. The first day the early team started at Boat Harbour at 0600, which meant we had to get up at around 0500... on a Saturday... and yea, I was on that team. I chose it myself, though. I wanted to get it over with, 'cause to be honest... I was pretty nervous. I've never really liked being that far down in water, I generally hate being in open water with the bottom far below me, and further to the beach. So yea, I wanted to get it over with. It wasn't what I expected though. It was awesome. Simply awesome.
So, 6.00 at Boat Harbour, Steve shows up half an hour later. We were quite bummed, 'cause that meant we could have slept another 30 minutes. 30 minutes mean a lot at that time of the day. We went out in a both with Steve, his wife, and (I guess) a friend of his. His wife would stay in the boat, to keep an eye on everything, and the rest would get in the water. Two instructors, 6 students. Getting the gear on went pretty smoothly. We were a little slow, but it didn't matter that much. Steve told us what we were going to do at the bottom, then we paired up and did our buddy checks, and then we jumped in the water.
Surface temperature was 22°C, so the water wasn't so bad, and we wore wetsuits anyway. Mathis and I were the first under. We pulled ourselves down by the anchor, equalized every meter or so, as we'd been taught. Now, the water in Hervey Bay isn't exactly clear (we had about 10m vision, which is pretty okay I guess), but we were still able to see a ton of fish and corals. They weren't exactly colourful, but that was because of the depth (at 13m the colour red is pretty hard to see). The place for our first two dives was called The Goori. It's a shipwreck. I'm not sure how close/far away from Boat Harbour it is, and it doesn't really matter. We were at the bottom for about 30min. Then we had to get back up, change tanks, and get back down again (we really need to work on our breathing (read: me), ad we use up waaaay too much air). Both times we were at the bottom that day, we did some of the stuff we had done in the pool as well. Most of it was a lot easier in the ocean than in the pool. Mostly 'cause you had a lot more room to do whatever you needed to do. We also spent some time just swimming around the wreck, and we did some stuff at the surface as well, before we got out of the water. So yea, it was awesome^^
One thing annoyed me a bit though. We were supposed to bring passport photos (for our certificate). I had already given him mine, when we were doing the Closed Water Dive. The last theory lesson, he told me that he didn't have my photos (last theory lesson, after CWD before OWD), so the day before our OWD, I went to the post office and bought some new ones. $12.50. When I wanted to give them to him after our dive... he said he found mine in a folder... the old ones. So I just wasted another $12.50 on passport photos that I have absolutely now use for. I can't even use them back in Denmark, as I had to take my glasses off...
The 3rd and 4th OWD's were at a different place. A place called "3 Ships". You can probably guess what it was. The first dive that day, we did some stuff again. "Full mask removal" at the bottom (17 meters this time), "establish neutral buoyancy" and "compass navigation". The compass navigation was the hardest, I'm having a hard time just looking at the compass, and not looking up all the time. I completed it though. The second dive, we just swam around the three shipwrecks, looking at everything. There was a pretty nasty current in some places, and my weightbelt was messing up, so I kept losing my balance in the water, so I had to use my arms to stabilize myself, which use up a lot of energy, and therefore, a lot of air. I had 10 bar(10 bar is probably the lowest the needle will go, before hitting 0) left when we got up, or something.
We also lost two people down there. Mathis, and Anders Papsø. Mathis was playing with the sand on the bottom, and didn't notice that we swam away. He stayed where he was, and we eventually got back to him. Papsø got lost when we were swimming through a hole in a wreck. When he got through, we were gone. He kept cool, though. Checked his air reserve, and then his compass, remembered where the anchor was, and waited for us at the anchor. Respect. Most of us would probably have gone straight to the surface, after the one minute you're supposed to look for you buddy. It seems Steve was pretty impressed as well. Especially that he was actually able to find the anchor again. Those things are pretty damn hard to find...
Anyway, we all got out of the water together, and got our gear off. Still semi-slow, but it wasn't so bad. After that 4th dive... we were scuba divers. We just needed our license. Of course, those things takes ages to show up, and we needed it for Whitsunday, so we got a temporary license instead. Awesome! Steve said we did great, and that we were a great bunch. And that we definitely was the A-team. The other team hadn't done too well, apparently (we had that explained the following Monday in school xD).

Scuba diving is awesome, can only recommend it! Quite expensive, even if we got it cheaper than most others. Now I'm really looking forward to the Whitsunday trip. Can't wait! I want to go scuba diving at Great Barrier Reef!

Oh, and there was one downside about scuba diving... I mentioned that I used my hands a lot. Using your hands a lot, means a lot of scrapes on your hands. I hit the wrecks and corals several times, which can actually be quite dangerous, but I was lucky. As we swam through a hole in a wreck, I also hit the top of the hole with my head, back, arm and cylinder. Got a pretty big scrape on my left arm now. Doesn't hurt too bad though. The worst thing is the bruise I got from the BCD and the wetsuit. I guess they weren't tight enough.

Now THAT hurts. Pretty damn sore, even after a couple of days. I need some kind of shirt when we're going diving in Whitsunday.
No pictures from the dives, unfortunately. Nobody on our team had a camera to use underwater. One person from the other team did though, so I'm hoping I can steal some pictures from him. Would be great.

Anyway, that's it for now. Will probably update again before Whitsunday (leaving this Friday), if I remember it of course.

See ya! /wave

(Oh, and before you ask, YES we saw sharks^^)