Ah, travel stress....gotta love it. I'm taking the car back today, meaning I'm reliant on the hop-on, hop-off Greyhound yet again. I'm in a hostel in Townsville, that I found at the last minute, saving me from resorting to the terribly unhip Holiday Inn. Of course, this means I've opted for the tragically hip alternative of one operational bathroom and cameras everywhere, including the kitchen, where if you don't do your dishes, you lose your deposit and name is broadcast on a big chalkboard. This means someone is actually monitoring the footage. I believe that cameras are hidden in the fake coconut birdfeeders around the place. I must check out by 10, lest the hostel gestapo confiscate my dirty laundry, yet I need to use up my 'Net credit.
I was waiting around this area to potentially play a beach party with some DJs and drummers, but in true flaky musician style, it was all talk, and didn't pan out. Bad karma for them, as the weather is cloudy and grey for their now trumpetless shindig. HA! Of course this leaves me with no immediate destination yet again, 1 hour and 10 minutes until checkout, and a potential 20 hour bus ride down the coast... though today seems hard to book a trip like that to the beach. Now, back to Cairns in the story:

After the exhilaration of the scuba trip on the "Kangaroo Explorer", we boarded the cruiser back to land, where I decided to check into a different hostel, Jimmy's, for a change of scene. It was right on the Esplanade, and I was only staying for one night, but upon entering my room, I discovered what a dirty hostel was like. Dirty laundry from several days worth of previous travellers, overflowing garbage, and a swimming pool with moss on it. One night, Conrad, one night. I washed off several days off saltwater and wetsuit grime in the curtainless shower under flickering flourescence, then headed out to meet my class for the post-trip pizza and beer. Good times, and goodbyes to my class: Jackie, Jeanette, Johanna, Kirsten, Sabina, and last, but not least, my scuba "buddy", Andreas. The scuba buddy is the dude watching your back while you are down under, double-checking that your air and anxiety are OK, and fighting off any predatory fish that make lurk. While at the pub, I learned about the Yongala dive, an old shipwreck that went down in 1911, and to seasoned divers still the best they have seen. Tours left from Magnetic Island, a beautiful spot that I had heard about from my friends Tammy and Michael in Melbourne. Since I didn't have a destination, I figured this would be the next stop on my journey. I proceeded to play some really bad pool with some Canadians who had also been aboard the KE, and I've always believed a pool game represents the vibe of the evening. Uh-oh.
After goodbyes, I left the Woolshed to hit Johnno's for one last jam. I wasn't too happy with the performance, even though Johnno liked how the blues turned out. My spirits weren't helped by my spilling of a pint ("schooner") all over the stage mid-set. After closing down the place, I figured I would make use of the "Wet T-Shirt" handstamp emblazoned on my hand from the Woolshed, and head back there to see if things were still going. What I found was the remnants of my class dancing on picnic tables, now off-duty dive instructors swooping in to score the ladies in my class, and me holding an expensive drink I wish I hadn't bought. I left them to there own devices and headed back to the hostel.

The next morning, I realized that I was tired of Cairns. It seemed like the John/Richmond club district plunked in the middle of a tiny town. I felt old amongst the 20-year old partiers, and beyond scuba, lounging, and drinking one's face off, there wasn't much to do. I booked my bus pass, and headed down to Townsville to catch the ferry to "Maggie". After a 6 hour bus ride through rainforest and bush just off the coast, I made the brief crossing and checked into X Base Hostel in Nelly Bay on Magnetic. This was much more the vibe I was looking for: quiet, less wandering hooligans, with a nice bar and patio right on the beach. I hung out there and chatted, then crashed out.
The next morning I was up early, scary in fact, and attributed this to still being on Kangaroo Explorer time (up each day at 5:30). I had some breakfast, and wandered around the island. It reminded me a lot of the granite and pine of Georgian Bay/Muskoka, although insert palms and beach as well. I took a little walk up to Hawkings Point, a lookout, where I met a nice old guy named Norman (trustworthy name?). He's from Sydney, and had been coming to Maggie since the '50s, and has watched the transformation from remote island with a few shacks to the tourist destination it is now. As of now, the first waterfront high-rises are under construction. He gave me some tips of places I should check out further south down the coast, as well as warned me against hitchhiking. I neglected to mention how I'd travelled across my own country, and given that success, held it as a viable option for travelling here. However, after hearing a story of a man waking up naked in a corrugated steel casket, buried underground, and after digging himself out and finding help, having no memory of how he got there, I began to think twice and stick to the bus, regardless of discomfort.
After leaving Norman, I wandered down to an isolated rocky beach, named Rocky Beach, had a swim, and amused myself by attempting to take pictures of the little rock crabs. They aren't the most willing subjects, and I ended up with several pictures of little black blurs.

More later, I've a minute left. Out!

Dive boat en route to the Yongala, a wreck that sank in 1911 and is regarded as the #1 spot to dive in Oz, and top 5 in the world. Here, I had my latest flashbulb memory: backlit by the sun while swimming 20m underwater, a 20-foot marble ray, flanked by sharks (though I later found out they weren't sharks but cobia) gently flapping above to my left, while another was gliding just to the right of me (also finally saw turtles - several huge suckers too!). Also, "Maggie" in the morning - the beach in front of my hostel (X Base) on Magnetic Island, off of Townsville. Deets to come!

Scubariffic. I've left Magnetic Island, and after a wander through the rainforest and "pre-Outback" around Townsville, I'm laying low for a night in a little old hotel in Halifax, Queensland. More to tell at some point, but it takes a while to upload the pix. I may be going back to Magnetic, but I'm waiting to hear from the DJ there via email - maybe I should have got the cell afterall. So I might be heading further down the coast sooner than I thought....

Hi, I'm back. (1) Despite my mom's natural worry, I've been more careful about the sun than I've ever been in my life. (2) That wasn't a dress, that was a towel. (3) I'm on a time limit here, hopefully I'll catch up, if not, this will resemble the back-n-forth time leaps of my journal. (4) I don't have USB or WindowsXP at the moment, which is fitting, since the best stuff lately I've been unable to take pix of. (5) I hate it here.

I woke up at 6:30 on the 21st, and sleep too well because I was paranoid about sleeping through my alarm, as well as someone on the other side of the wall next to my bed must have picked up someone really loud. Crammed my possessions for the next three days into my day bag, and headed downstairs to meet the shuttle bus to my dive boat, where I would be spending the next three days. I ran into one of the Brisbane boys in the lobby, as they were to go on a fishing trip. It turns out all the fishing charters were cancelled due to windy conditions, which left me a little worried about the state of my trip. My fears abated at 7:20 though, as the shuttle showed up and carried me on to the rest of my "hurry up and wait" morning. Finally boarded a cruise ship at about 10:30, and we headed out to sea. The rollers were huge, and it wasn't long before the horde of Asian tourists and backpackers were yacking into paperbags. I'd taken a seasick pill generously donated by my scuba "buddy", Andreas from Germany, so between that and being hyped beyond belief, I was fine.
After about an hour and a half straight east from Cairns, we reached the Pontoon, essentially a quonset hut permanently moored in the sea, with the mountains of the mainland a faintly discernable blue against the sky. Between the isolation of the pontoon, and its accompanying helipad about 100m away, it reminded me of "Waterworld", for those who will admit to watching that movie. From the Pontoon, we were put on a little outboard ferry (with a glass bottom so we could actually see the fish - awesome!) which carried us to the dive boat, the Kangaroo Explorer, which was moored a little further out.
My first impression of the K.E. was of a pirate ship. Three decks, each with drying towels or wetsuits hanging over the rails, and a lot rustier than it appeared in the brochure. The K.E., like a lot of the boats I've seen in this part of the world, is a catamaran. At 25m in length, it only has 2m of boat below the waterline when full of passengers. We came aboard, were assigned bunks, and told to take our shoes off for safety. No problem mate.
After a hearty buffet meal, we hit the water for the first time (so much for waiting a half hour after eating.) We dove in off the stern, did a little snorkel trip for warm-up, then got our gear on and swam through the choppy sea to the front of the boat, where we were to pull ourselves down about 10m with the bow moorline. I think I pulled myself down too fast, 'coz I couldn't equalize my ears, and got a mask squeeze. I panicked, and let go of the rope, thinking "I can't do this, omigod". After a bit of thrashing, I got a grip, popped my ears (the left one is really stubborn), and gently descended to the bottom.
After four dives, I became a certified Open Water diver. For my fifth dive, my buddy Andreas refused the option of a guide, and like a couple of teenagers getting a car on their own for the first time, zoomed all over the shallow reef without any sensible destination. It was great, and after the dive, we reassured ourselves that we hadn't missed any cool stuff by not knowing what the hell we were doing.
I'm worried about becoming addicted to yet another expensive sport. Wildlife on land has evolved to become afraid of humans, but in the middle of the ocean, the craziest fish float by and basically nod, as if you were passing someone on the way to work. Rather than bore folk (and myself) with a dive-by-dive, some highlights:
- a huge dark cloud that slowly approached, I thought it would be a clump of kelp, but turned out to be a a tightly packed school of parrotfish
- lots of purple seastars (in this politically correct era, the name has been changed from "starfish", as they ain't fish
- several Napoleon Wrasse, huge mellow fish with big lips and nicknames like Elvis and Wally
- spiny lionfish, moray eels, butterflyfish
- in a dive site called the Fishbowl, essentially a shallow reefm being washed back and forth by the current and seeing the most amazing colours, coral, and fish on high speed
- anenome fish, aka clownfish, aka Nemo, doing the shake-shimmy among anenomes
- blue worms with fernlike antennae that burrow into the coral, and when you wave your hand near, they pop back in like the carrots in Looney Toonz
- giant clams that you rub, and they'll snap shut

There were hordes of other fish, most of which I couldn't individually name, but was blown away by the collective experience. Of course, I'm the guy who was blown away by being at the bottom of the 4m pool. I didn't take any pictures down where I was, as underwater photography is an artform unto itself, and the fish are usually coy in letting one get a good pic. I wanted to get the full experience without mucking around with a camera down there. That said, a common theme of this trip is turning out to be being in the wrong place at the wrong time when it comes to wildlife. Thus far, I've been elsewhere when sharks and green turtles were sighted underwater. Missed the whale sighting while I was on the boat. Sigh, this trip sucks.
While I was at sea, I decided to fall for one of the tourist upgrades, and signed on to get my "Adventure" certification, which means I'm qualified to go to 30m depth, navigate underwater with a compass, and swim at night. The night dive was surreal. I saw calimari squid, phosporescent plankton, the lionfish, and the parrotfish in their little sleeping bag of snot. There were only six students and two instructors down there for my night dive, and it reminded me of "The Abyss". You can't see the surface, nor beyond the dull glow of your "torch", but everyone sticks together, so despite some pre-dive jitters, it was a great experience. I can't wait to do "Underwater Combat", like in James Bond.

Like I said, I didn't take pictures, and this gushing description didn't do this stuff justice. Furthermore, I've since moved on to Magnetic Island, done another dive, and renting a car tomorrow for a random wander for the next few days. However, my credit here is running out, so I'll have to save it for my next post. This trip sucks.