Hi everyone,
Pictures here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Bh5ZtvphQ3wbTb8H9
When I last wrote you I had just arrived in Airlie Beach, Queensland, which is the northeastern part of Australia. I was there barely one night before I left for a 3-day, 2-night sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands. Although, the night I was there I somehow ran into Lior again and we went out for a couple of beers. One of the bars called Magnum's had female jelly wrestling that night, so of course we had to stick around for that. Let me tell you something... women can be vicious when they're wrestling in jelly for cold hard cash.
I have to say that the sail was one of the highlights of my trip so far. I've really enjoyed, both in NZ and here, the opportunities to get out amongst nature and enjoy some of the things that make a country unique much more than my time in the cities. The sailboat was called the Ragamuffin II, a 56-foot sloop that used to be used for racing. The captain went by the name Splash, and the assistant was a Kiwi named Craig. There were only 10 of us on the boat which was great because there was plenty of room to roam. There was plenty of snorkelling to be done as the coral was very shallow and the marine life extremely abundant. We had to wear these body suits to protect us from the box jellyfish which are about the size of your pinky fingernail but have a lethal dose of venom. I didn't mind so much, except on the first day the suit I wore irritated my skin for some reason. When I came out of the water and took off the suit I had some sort of crazy rash all over my body. Not only that but my hands had swollen up to like twice their normal size.
I looked like I could've been Woods' brother with these thick stumpy fingers. I was very concerned that I wouldn't be able to get my hands around a beer can, but luckily the swelling went down by the evening. I think I was the only one who didn't have any problems getting to sleep, as I found the rocking and the sound of the waves soothing. Hey, I'm a Viareggino, we have salt water in our veins. The next day we headed to Whitehaven beach where the sand is 99% silica. This is supposed to make it extremely bright and white in the sunshine, which I couldn't verify for you because it was raining all morning. Luckily, by the afternoon things cleared up as we were sailing to another harbor. For those of you who've never been on a sailboat, it's bitchin' when the boat is angling at like 45 degrees down into the water and you're cruising along. We snorkelled again that afternoon (different stinger suit) and I found myself among a school of what looked like transparent sardines.
There were like 200 of them. I chased them around for like 5 minutes... they'd all change course at once to try and avoid me. The next day Splash took us to this resort island called South Molle Island. 5 of us went and played a round of golf at the 9 hole course they had on the island. I've never played golf before with no shirt and no shoes. Judge Smails would've slapped an injunction on me.
They reserved a table for us that night at Magnum's so we all got together for pizza and beers. For 40 bucks Aus we got 4 large pizzas and two pitchers! Anyway, this night they were having a pole dancing competition so I told everybody that if I entered it I would win. Of course, I didn't think they allowed dudes to enter. I mean, who wants to see a guy pole dancing? Well, apparently the folks at Magnum's do. It was too late to back out at this point, and besides they were offering $500 to the winner. Plus, you all know that I'm an exhibitionist at heart, so what the hell. The whole team from Ragamuffin II was there so I had my own cheering section and they also helped me out with my dance strategy. So around 10:30 I was whisked away to the VIP area of the bar where I was given free champagne along with the other contestants. I was the only guy in the competition, of course. So the time comes for them to call us down and I'm sitting there on this stairwell waiting for the competition to start. All the girls were so nervous but to me it was no big deal. I figure the worse that could happen would be that I look like a jackass, but a) I'm leaving tomorrow and b) I could win 500 bucks. So one girl goes first and does a passable dancing routine.
My number is called next. I wanted to go last so as I could leave a lasting impression with the audience, but that's the way it goes. There were about 200 people in the bar and I couldn't even tell you what music they played for me. I decided I was going to pull out all the stops so I charged in there and started workin' that pole baby! But when you're going for money, you've got to go for the gold, so I started losing clothes. First, my t-shirt went flying into the audience. Next, the pants exited stage left so I was dancing around in my red Calvin Klein boxers. But I knew that it wouldn't be enough to ice first place, so I had a secret weapon. One of the guys from the boat by the name of Chris gave me some props to use while I was dancing. First, I had a pair of illuminated devil horns that I was wearing on my head. But the big guns had to come out for the grand finale. I whipped off my Calvins and bam! Unleashed the tiger print g-string! I didn't ask Chris why he had a tiger print g-string to loan me. For some reason, it just made sense. The cool thing about it was that it had some kind of electronic speaker built in so that when you squeezed it growled. But you couldn't really hear it onstage, unfortunately.
Anyway, I'm sitting there waving my boxer shorts over my head in a g-string and I'm thinking I've got this competition nailed. They did the voting by who got cheered the loudest and I actually came in a respectable 3rd place. But let me tell you why dudes will never win pole dancing competitions. (I can't believe I just typed that last sentence). First of all, you're competing against women named Jasmine and Bambi (no joke, they're the ones who beat me). I should've told them my name was Amber. Second, no guys are going to cheer for another guy when he's pole dancing, especially if he's wearing a tiger print g-string. So you've got only 50% of the audience at most. Lastly, two words: fake boobs. Hey, I would've voted for Bambi too. The cool part was that I became some kind of minor celebrity that night. I had people coming up to me saying they thought I should've won, I got the loudest cheers, etc. One of the boat crew took some pictures for me, although he didn't take any when I was in my g-string (thankfully). Another guy actually videotaped the whole thing so I expect it to be up on the internet any day now (so much for my presidential aspirations). I keep having flashbacks to that night when I'm trying to go to sleep.
After the pole dancing incident I quickly left town and headed to Cairns. Cairns is very touristy, I would come to find out. There's souvenir shops, restaurants, cafes, bars, and tourist agencies lining just about every street. To be honest with you, I didn't like the city so much because it doesn't seem to have much character. It seems like a lot of people, especially backpackers, just go there to get hammered and hang out on the lagoon during the day. Still, I was there to get my open water scuba certification, which turned out to be awesome. There were two days of training in the classroom and pool. My instructor was a guy named Steve who used to work in the UK as a fluid dynamics engineer for Williams' formula 1 team. He's also a karate instructor, but we just called him Scuba Steve. I loved every second of it, even the pool time, but the real excitement came on the three day liveaboard boat trip out to the Great Barrier Reef. I didn't take any seasickness medicine on the trip out because I wanted to see if I was susceptible to seasickness. The answer is yes. Once we got out there and into the water, though, it ceased to matter. The marine life we saw, even on the certification dives, was outstanding. Giant turtles, fish of all shapes and colors, we saw Nemo, some people even saw reef sharks. It was brilliant. It even made me forget that they were waking us up at 6 every morning. I did 2 dives on the first day, 4 dives on the second day, and 2 dives on the last day. They fed us constantly because your metabolism speeds up under the pressure of the water. I liked it so much I continued the open water cert and got my adventure diver certification, which included a night dive, a deep dive, and a photography dive. The night dive was creepy because it was hard to get your bearings and tell how deep you are without looking at your gauges. When you shined your flashlight on other people it looked like they were in outer space because everything around was black. The deep dive took me down to 26 meters where everything looks blue and green (you lose more of the color spectrum the deeper you go). I was hoping to suffer from nitrogen narcosis, which is a state that makes you feel high from your body not being able to get rid of excess nitrogen at depth below 20 meters, but unfortunately I was resistant. The photography dive was brilliant because I was able to get some really good shots of a stingray hiding under the sand and then swimming out to chase a fish.
We all got back on Friday and went out and partied on Friday night. It was a good mixed group and one of the girls was a local so she got us into some good clubs for free. The rest of the weekend was spent recovering as I got some kind of wicked chest cough from being underwater all week I guess. I also got some new ink... heh heh.
Well, I flew to Alice Springs on Monday and have been here a few days already. I'll save that for the next chapter since this has already been a way long e-mail. Hope everybody's doing great!
As always, the dude abides.
Dave
Pictures here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Bh5ZtvphQ3wbTb8H9
When I last wrote you I had just arrived in Airlie Beach, Queensland, which is the northeastern part of Australia. I was there barely one night before I left for a 3-day, 2-night sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands. Although, the night I was there I somehow ran into Lior again and we went out for a couple of beers. One of the bars called Magnum's had female jelly wrestling that night, so of course we had to stick around for that. Let me tell you something... women can be vicious when they're wrestling in jelly for cold hard cash.
I have to say that the sail was one of the highlights of my trip so far. I've really enjoyed, both in NZ and here, the opportunities to get out amongst nature and enjoy some of the things that make a country unique much more than my time in the cities. The sailboat was called the Ragamuffin II, a 56-foot sloop that used to be used for racing. The captain went by the name Splash, and the assistant was a Kiwi named Craig. There were only 10 of us on the boat which was great because there was plenty of room to roam. There was plenty of snorkelling to be done as the coral was very shallow and the marine life extremely abundant. We had to wear these body suits to protect us from the box jellyfish which are about the size of your pinky fingernail but have a lethal dose of venom. I didn't mind so much, except on the first day the suit I wore irritated my skin for some reason. When I came out of the water and took off the suit I had some sort of crazy rash all over my body. Not only that but my hands had swollen up to like twice their normal size.
I looked like I could've been Woods' brother with these thick stumpy fingers. I was very concerned that I wouldn't be able to get my hands around a beer can, but luckily the swelling went down by the evening. I think I was the only one who didn't have any problems getting to sleep, as I found the rocking and the sound of the waves soothing. Hey, I'm a Viareggino, we have salt water in our veins. The next day we headed to Whitehaven beach where the sand is 99% silica. This is supposed to make it extremely bright and white in the sunshine, which I couldn't verify for you because it was raining all morning. Luckily, by the afternoon things cleared up as we were sailing to another harbor. For those of you who've never been on a sailboat, it's bitchin' when the boat is angling at like 45 degrees down into the water and you're cruising along. We snorkelled again that afternoon (different stinger suit) and I found myself among a school of what looked like transparent sardines.
There were like 200 of them. I chased them around for like 5 minutes... they'd all change course at once to try and avoid me. The next day Splash took us to this resort island called South Molle Island. 5 of us went and played a round of golf at the 9 hole course they had on the island. I've never played golf before with no shirt and no shoes. Judge Smails would've slapped an injunction on me.
They reserved a table for us that night at Magnum's so we all got together for pizza and beers. For 40 bucks Aus we got 4 large pizzas and two pitchers! Anyway, this night they were having a pole dancing competition so I told everybody that if I entered it I would win. Of course, I didn't think they allowed dudes to enter. I mean, who wants to see a guy pole dancing? Well, apparently the folks at Magnum's do. It was too late to back out at this point, and besides they were offering $500 to the winner. Plus, you all know that I'm an exhibitionist at heart, so what the hell. The whole team from Ragamuffin II was there so I had my own cheering section and they also helped me out with my dance strategy. So around 10:30 I was whisked away to the VIP area of the bar where I was given free champagne along with the other contestants. I was the only guy in the competition, of course. So the time comes for them to call us down and I'm sitting there on this stairwell waiting for the competition to start. All the girls were so nervous but to me it was no big deal. I figure the worse that could happen would be that I look like a jackass, but a) I'm leaving tomorrow and b) I could win 500 bucks. So one girl goes first and does a passable dancing routine.
My number is called next. I wanted to go last so as I could leave a lasting impression with the audience, but that's the way it goes. There were about 200 people in the bar and I couldn't even tell you what music they played for me. I decided I was going to pull out all the stops so I charged in there and started workin' that pole baby! But when you're going for money, you've got to go for the gold, so I started losing clothes. First, my t-shirt went flying into the audience. Next, the pants exited stage left so I was dancing around in my red Calvin Klein boxers. But I knew that it wouldn't be enough to ice first place, so I had a secret weapon. One of the guys from the boat by the name of Chris gave me some props to use while I was dancing. First, I had a pair of illuminated devil horns that I was wearing on my head. But the big guns had to come out for the grand finale. I whipped off my Calvins and bam! Unleashed the tiger print g-string! I didn't ask Chris why he had a tiger print g-string to loan me. For some reason, it just made sense. The cool thing about it was that it had some kind of electronic speaker built in so that when you squeezed it growled. But you couldn't really hear it onstage, unfortunately.
Anyway, I'm sitting there waving my boxer shorts over my head in a g-string and I'm thinking I've got this competition nailed. They did the voting by who got cheered the loudest and I actually came in a respectable 3rd place. But let me tell you why dudes will never win pole dancing competitions. (I can't believe I just typed that last sentence). First of all, you're competing against women named Jasmine and Bambi (no joke, they're the ones who beat me). I should've told them my name was Amber. Second, no guys are going to cheer for another guy when he's pole dancing, especially if he's wearing a tiger print g-string. So you've got only 50% of the audience at most. Lastly, two words: fake boobs. Hey, I would've voted for Bambi too. The cool part was that I became some kind of minor celebrity that night. I had people coming up to me saying they thought I should've won, I got the loudest cheers, etc. One of the boat crew took some pictures for me, although he didn't take any when I was in my g-string (thankfully). Another guy actually videotaped the whole thing so I expect it to be up on the internet any day now (so much for my presidential aspirations). I keep having flashbacks to that night when I'm trying to go to sleep.
After the pole dancing incident I quickly left town and headed to Cairns. Cairns is very touristy, I would come to find out. There's souvenir shops, restaurants, cafes, bars, and tourist agencies lining just about every street. To be honest with you, I didn't like the city so much because it doesn't seem to have much character. It seems like a lot of people, especially backpackers, just go there to get hammered and hang out on the lagoon during the day. Still, I was there to get my open water scuba certification, which turned out to be awesome. There were two days of training in the classroom and pool. My instructor was a guy named Steve who used to work in the UK as a fluid dynamics engineer for Williams' formula 1 team. He's also a karate instructor, but we just called him Scuba Steve. I loved every second of it, even the pool time, but the real excitement came on the three day liveaboard boat trip out to the Great Barrier Reef. I didn't take any seasickness medicine on the trip out because I wanted to see if I was susceptible to seasickness. The answer is yes. Once we got out there and into the water, though, it ceased to matter. The marine life we saw, even on the certification dives, was outstanding. Giant turtles, fish of all shapes and colors, we saw Nemo, some people even saw reef sharks. It was brilliant. It even made me forget that they were waking us up at 6 every morning. I did 2 dives on the first day, 4 dives on the second day, and 2 dives on the last day. They fed us constantly because your metabolism speeds up under the pressure of the water. I liked it so much I continued the open water cert and got my adventure diver certification, which included a night dive, a deep dive, and a photography dive. The night dive was creepy because it was hard to get your bearings and tell how deep you are without looking at your gauges. When you shined your flashlight on other people it looked like they were in outer space because everything around was black. The deep dive took me down to 26 meters where everything looks blue and green (you lose more of the color spectrum the deeper you go). I was hoping to suffer from nitrogen narcosis, which is a state that makes you feel high from your body not being able to get rid of excess nitrogen at depth below 20 meters, but unfortunately I was resistant. The photography dive was brilliant because I was able to get some really good shots of a stingray hiding under the sand and then swimming out to chase a fish.
We all got back on Friday and went out and partied on Friday night. It was a good mixed group and one of the girls was a local so she got us into some good clubs for free. The rest of the weekend was spent recovering as I got some kind of wicked chest cough from being underwater all week I guess. I also got some new ink... heh heh.
Well, I flew to Alice Springs on Monday and have been here a few days already. I'll save that for the next chapter since this has already been a way long e-mail. Hope everybody's doing great!
As always, the dude abides.
Dave
