What's shorter than a weekend? A Vacation!

Kristen's birthday is Monday, so we did some early celebrating and activities and had a pretty packed and complete weekend. On top of a birthday, just accepted a great job offer at Media General at a pretty good position which will involve a lot of work, however it'll be an incredible platform to learn and blossom. Friday I met her at work and walked through downtown to the Channelside area to have dinner with the family at Tina Tapas. After dinner, we all attended the Trans-Siberia Orchestra concert at the Tampa Forum nearby. I've always intended to see them throughout the years but never got around to actually going and was thankful for the opportunity. They are most famous for their holiday albums, especially their rendition of 'Carol of the Bells' that tends to get hourly play on most stations the week of Christmas. It was a fairly long concert with the first half dedicated to a Christmas story and associated songs with the second half involving other works that have their same flair for production and 80's style arena rock. I was especially looking forward to their performance of Carl Orff's 'O Fortuna' as they have yet release that album. Carmina Burana is my absolute favorite musical composition and this song is recognizable in a dozen movie musical scores over the decade, especially any scene involving knights riding off into battle against evil.

Saturday involved an early wake-up to pack gear and food for a morning drive to Jupiter, on Florida's east coast, for a couple of dives. I hadn't been in the water since the Australia trip in March and Kristen hadn't been in a couple of years. I spent part of Friday getting gear together and repaired and picked up a saltwater fishing license so we could go lobster hunting. The seas were a tad rough, however the dives themselves were fairly nice and it was good to get back into it again and felt as easy and comfortable as if we had been diving last week. Being typical east coast diving, we saw a nurse shark within a minute of hitting the bottom as well as turtles, spotted and green moray eels, and the usual assortment of fish. I was able to capture one small Spanish lobster, though 3 others go away. Mid-way through the second dive, I started hearing a hissing from the first stage behind my head and felt back to find quite a bit of air escaping from my high pressure hose. Apparently the hose was starting to split and was gradually getting worse. I took off the gear to look at it, probably freaking Kristen out a bit in the process since we were at 75 feet and still swimming with the current, and after inspection figured I would not be able to fix it. So I would not have to cut the dive short, and thus be cold, queasy and bored sitting on the boat, I just put my gear back on and spent the rest of the dive reaching back and turning on the tank just enough to pressurize the regulator to get a breath before turning it off to exhale. At first Kristen was right there with her alternate ready, but finally figured I must know what I'm doing and thus resumed the dive. Eventually we had to call the dive on NDL time. I was able to have a nice chat on the ride back in with an old dive acquaintance I knew through one of the online diving forums when I had been seriously active on the SCUBA forums and found it nice to hear of the divers still active and some of their recent trips.

On Sunday Kristen went to the football game, though I decided to bow out. I'm really not that into professional football and didn't want her to not enjoy the game and be worried that I was bored, so she hung out with her dad at the stadium for the Bucs vs Vikings game while I spent some time working in the garage and getting some things straightened for the party next weekend. Hopefully I'll have a chance to get the hot tub working and the rest of the yard fixed up before everyone arrives next weekend.

SCUBA diving: so many bodies of water, so little money!

I just finished four days of diving on the Great Barrier Reef aboard the liveaboard TAKA. The weather turned out to be simply outstanding with even the crew saying that it was the best they had seen in months. Diving this reef was quite high on my 'things to do before I die' list and I am glad to have been able to experience it in this manner. The weather was calm the entire time with barely any waves or major current. I have the say that the food was the best I have ever had on any trip. The chef, Jason did an outstanding job on every single meal and every one of the divers gave him rave reviews! The diving itself was pretty spectacular as we were blessed with excellent visibility for most of the trip. The biggest problem I had with the operation was the lack of flexibility. No matter the skill level or gas used, the dive time was the same, so had I know this, I would have forgone the added expense of using NITROX. The staff instructors were pretty standard fare in that they had the requisite basic skills, but nothing noteworthy (i.e. spent more time vertical than horizontal, kicked up bottom, etc).

On most of the dives we saw just about too much to describe and I think Mams really enjoyed herself. We got along quite well with the other divers and had as much fun out of the water as in it. Most were new (and even a couple not certified), but all really seemed to have a blast. Each night during dinner we would watch the edited video shot during the dives by John. I was struck by how expansive the barrier reef really was. Even when on top of the large ship, across my entire field of view across the horizon stretched reef visible by the breaking waves. It was stunning to me how different this reef is to nearly anything in the Untied States. Most of the reefs around the Florida keys and even Cozumel are dying. These dives and those of Roatan last year remind me of how a living reef can actually appear. Even on the long haul back in we had some fun watching the dolphin play in the bow waves.

Mams, Paula (one of the divers we met), and I decided to stay in the hostel together for the evening since we had flights around the same time the next day. After we got in we met some of crew out at a pub called the Green Ant Cantina in downtown Cairns. We were able to meet up with Layla, Mish, Johen, Nigil, Jason (the excellent cook), Claudia (the exquisite deckhand) and a few others. I think we were able to all enjoy drinks together more on the level of friendship than crew and clients. We had a great night out but had to leave too soon as we had to get up by 3:30AM to get a taxi to the airport. After experience this past week I remember why it is so great to be alive and able to enjoy these kinds of things.

Confucius say: Man who put head on railroad track get splitting headache.

Our flight in Perth was delayed by an hour for our departure and we were so tired that I was once again asleep before the safety briefing and only awake long enough to eat and was out again before the tray was picked up. ,It was quite lucky that the connecting flight in Brisbane was also running late as we just had about 10 minutes to catch the flight with our luggage also somehow able to make it. We took a taxi to the dive shop to drop off our luggage. Mams wanted to do some shopping, however I really wanted to take a Skyway Rainforest Cableway tour through the mountains, so we ended up parting for the day. I was able to make arrangement at a tourist booking spot just minutes before the shuttle bus was to come by, so I really lucked out. Timing on this trip has been incredible so far with everything coming together just right.

Once I got to the visitor center, I picked up my ticket and quickly boarded for an excellent ride up the mountainside. This was the longest ride (4.7 miles one-way taking about 90 minutes) I have ever taken and the views and experience were great. The start was at about an elevation of 16ft with the highest point along the way at 1,700 feet, so it was quite a climb. I was fairly thick into the rain forest in just a few minutes and really enjoyed several stops along the way. Each of these transfer stations had a boardwalk going around the rain forest canopy and had interpretive guides that shared some information about the area. The skyrail termination was in the small town of Kuranda that was nice in that it had several other small attractions as well as some eateries, bars, and shops. I even came across a private bat rescue center when wandering around some of the off-beaten paths around the town.

I took the scenic railway back into Cairns to the downtown station just a few blocks from the dive shop. the railway itself was another grand part of the adventure trip and had many sweeping vistas and even stopped for a close-up look at Baron Falls. There was plenty of space in the cars and I could easily move about and even experience the ride between the cars for a short while. After a quick Internet cafe e-mail check I headed to the shop to sign in. When we got there we found out that we had been upgraded to private suites since they had extra bookings in the berths that we had originally reserved. While signing paperwork we chatted with the other divers as we would be spending the next 3-4 days with them. A van picked us up and took us to the boat, Taka, where we loaded out gear after being shown our rooms. Originally we were to be in one of the lower berths with shared facilities, however we were fortunate enough to be bumped into the private suites with out own toilet, shower, and sink area. After a pretty long briefing, we had the first of many incredible meals during the trip.

Kayakers do it hard, flip over, and do it again.

I had to work on Thursday but got back just early enough time to get ready for the hash run and drag Jason out of the computer room. Houston residents Finger in the Dyke and Goldilocks (old time Tampa hashers) were haring the trail in South Tampa. One what was promised to be an easy trail, Goldi lead us on another 4-5 mile death march that I actually enjoyed since I hadn't been running in a couple of days and needed the exercise anyway. We all convened at Tiny Tap and had a really good turn-out (~38 folks showed up) with several visitors as well. We didn't get to stay too late and really hang out since we had to get up early in the morning for a trip to Crystal River for some manatee viewing and kayaking.

It was a bit tough to get myself up at 4:30 so I could load up the kayak gear and take off some of the extra kayaks from the previous week's trip downtown. I finally got everything together at we took off around 5:30AM. With no traffic and the Veteran's Expressway, it took a lot less time to get there than I had expected. We parked at a hotel/marina right across from Banana Island that is the place where most people go to see the manatees. We paddled over to the island (only a few hundred feet) and swam around for a while with the manatees. I took a small 40cf decompression bottle and regulator so I could swim around the cavern for a little while and not have to deal with all the dive gear. I did get a few strange looks from divers when I swam to with just a tank, light, and dive reel in my hand without any other dive gear in the back of the cavern, but otherwise the cavern was empty of anyone else. This was the site where I did my first open water training dives so many years ago, so it was nice to be back for a bit.

After playing around Tarpon Spring, we decided to leave the packed area and head around King's Bay a bit. I had never really had a chance to explore the area, so I really enjoyed paddling among the various islands in the bay and checking out the local wildlife. I've always wanted to check out several other numerous springs in the area. Unfortunately, I don't have a depth finder, so finding a particular fifty foot hole (Shark Sink) in the middle of the bay somewhere is a bit hard. Since Jason was done with swimming, I didn't want to take a lot of time to keep jumping in the water in a search. We paddled around toward the Three Sisters springs where I happened to run into my friend Jon and his son. I liked paddling around the area but had to leave sooner than I would have wanted since Jason had already headed back to the truck to rest. I'd definitely love to come back and spend the day when there are no crowds around (the place was quite packed later in the morning with dozens of people). We got back by 2 o'clock, so I had time to run several errands. I had to run to a body repair shop to collected the personal effects in a friend's car that unfortunately got totaled just before they left for a month's trip. I then had to head to the garage in Brandon to take back all the kayaks and then load up the camper for the weekend's events. After getting a quick hair cut I got home with just enough time to have a great dinner, pack some personal clothes, and get some well needed sleep.