Gutted

So I would love to say that everything has been great since our last post, but that isn't really true.

We killed the screen of our Canon s95 four days into our trip in Palau (that's in Micronesia).  Cor had a moment of distraction, put the camera into the underwater housing upside down and the force of closing it cracked the screen beyond repair.

So the $1000 worth of underwater strobe (Inon D-2000) and tray we bought in the USA has been pretty much worthless over the past week and a half as we have no idea what we are pointing our camera at, whether it is in focus, underexposed or overexposed, or what settings the camera is on.  At least we don't until we get home and put the card in the laptop.  Needless to say we have had some great experiences, from mantas to mandarinfish, that we wanted to record that we have missed.  We have a few pics that worked, but nothing that does justice to the camera equipment we have.  I ordered a replacement to be sent to our hotel in Guam so that we could pick it up before we do our final liveaboard of this trip, but it hasn't arrived and it looks like the next week will be more of the same.

I know it is only a camera, but we are on this trip of a lifetime and the thought that we aren't able to take the photos of a lifetime that it warrants is a really shitty feeling.  We have both been down about it, but you know what?  We are still here with each other and that is what matters, sappy as it is.

A reminder of how lucky we are is passing to the south right now.  While we sit here in Yap, Typhoon Bopha, a category 4 hurricane, is on its way to Palau and will hit in the next day or so.  We were there diving just last week, and our thoughts are with the Palauns who are about to be hit with this disaster.  I hope they make it through OK.

Love to all of you travelling or just dreaming about it.  See you out there on the water, under it, on the rock or at the bar.

Palya!

One of the photos we got before killing the camera..... a broadclub cuttlefish.

Grey reef shark - they are stocky for a reef shark

Coreen in the Blue Hole cavern

California dreaming meets Hawaii Five-Oh!

Hey folks,

We are in Micronesia at the moment and have now posted our photos from the past few weeks, but I wanted to give you all a quick skinny on what we have been up to since we last posted.

One of the people we met in Red Rocks was Brian, a legend of a bloke that has done 6 years down in Antartica and now lives on a 36ft Catalina yacht in San Diego.  He offered to take us sailing if we were ever down there, so we did what we normally do, we rolled on down and took him up on his kind offer.  We had a great couple days hanging with him, sailing, chilling out, drinking Green Flash beer and climbing.

A brief side note here on one of my favourite topics: BEER!  Eleven years ago when we were in the USA their beer was not fit to drink.  They were into their Budweiser (the watery kind, not the real Czech kind), Miller Lite (low in calories don't you know) and Coors.  Now, they have woken up to the fact that beer can taste better than water and have a real trend forming of IPA's (India Pale Ales), golden ales, and a whole range of tasty lagers.  It is a complete change from where they were 11 years ago, and one that makes travelling the US a much more pleasant experience!  I can recommend Green Flash, Lagunitas, Kona Brewing Co, Metolius and Mahena but there are so many more.

After this we visited our mates in Venice Beach again, and then cruised up along the coast road to Morro Bay where one of Cor's online friends lives.  Those two just started chatting like they had known each other for years (which I suppose they have) and I was given cause to wonder just how much our world has changed in the last 15 years.  Those that know us wouldn't be surprised to know that Peggy and I got on just as famously, and we swapped names of many sci-fi books and authors over a cracking seafood lunch.

We then went via amazing Hearst Castle (if you ever get a chance, check it out) to Monterey Bay to see the aquarium.  It was fan-fricking-tastic.  So many things to see, and our favourites included the rays, the seahorses and their mola-mola.  Check out the pics on the link to the right for a tiny slice of what it is like.

Next stop, San Francisco, and another friend we met in the Australian outback, the gorgeous Sarah.  Sarah arranged a day out in Napa for us touring some wineries, including one where her friend Zane worked.  This guy was knowledgeable about so much in relation to wine and was a top guy to boot.  We had an amazing day there and leaving after drinks with these guys was so hard, I could definitely hang with them a lot more.

And so after San Fran we flew to Hawaii.  We caught up briefly with our mate James from Costa Rica before he went out for another week of work on the Aggressor, and we did our manta ray night dive.  Only a couple of manta rays and no really close encounters, so fingers are crossed that we see them here in Micronesia.

We hired a convertible in Hawaii (a Camaro) which was fun, and then we added to the fun factor with a helicopter ride over the Big Island.  It was sensational to see the lava flowing red hot down the fields up close and personal, and getting into the valleys to see scores of waterfalls on the wet side of the island was breathtaking.

Another note, in Hawaii cops drive Mustangs, Chargers and Camaros.  They get a stipend to their salary to drive their own cars and the state gives them money for the safety bits and pieces.  It is strange to see a bright orange Charger in the rear view mirror with a cop light on top, real Hawaii 5-0 stuff.

A final thing to add, see the links to the right for our latest pics (I have even updated the Costa Rica ones) and I have now done a video of our climb of Frogland here on Vimeo.  There is one instance of bad language in there towards the end (just a warning for the parents) but check it out anyway.  My first ever video!

Palya!

Super Sipadan, Magical Malaysia

So we are dry now, finally.  After 52 dives by me and 55 dives by Cor over the last few weeks, we needed some serious dry land time to de-prune the fingers and toes and we are currently at her parents' place in Malaysia doing this.

For those not "in the know", we have been spending our time on an island off the coast of Borneo doing some scuba diving.  During the three weeks, we completed our Rescue Diver course (apparently adequate care provided is better than perfect care withheld, who knew?) and dived the islands of Sipadan, Mabul, Kapalai, Siamil, Sibuan, Mantabuan, Timba Timba and Mataking, plus did a couple of pretty interesting night dives in the port of Semporna, where you really don't want to know what's in the water, you just look for the crazy little creatures that come out at night.

Nudibranch

First the diving.  In a nutshell we dived the number one dive site in the world a few times, plus did some brilliant diving at a whole host of other places.  The diving was incredibly varied, with Sipadan having stacks of big fish schools, sharks (our friends) and more turtles than you could poke a stick at.  Then some of the other islands were havens for small stuff like octopus, cuttlefish, camouflaged frogfish, incredibly cool nudibranches (which you will see from our pictures are an obsession of ours), plus some really weird things we have never seen before like sea moths (essentially a crazy-looking fish).  There is no other way to describe it other than brilliant.

We stayed on Mabul with Scuba Junkie and they were great.  The instructors, divemasters and staff all made our stay fantastic.  The accommodation and food was really good, though we only spent time in the room to get much needed sleep.  Scuba Junkie is a rare company that cares about the environment in which it operates,  plus the community that it works with, something that pervades the attitudes of everyone there.  Highly recommend using these guys if you ever go.

Frogfish

They run a stack of initiatives.  Please support the Semporna Shark Sanctuary petition by following the link, signing up and posting it on Facebook.  When you see firsthand the devastation caused by shark finning to the populations of these amazing animals, with 10's of millions of sharks being hauled out of the sea every year, having their fins cut off and thrown back to drown, you realise how insane and unsustainable the current appetite for shark fin soup is.

Scuba Junkie also have an innovative scheme relating to turtle nests.  In the past when a turtle came ashore to lay its eggs, the locals would either eat the eggs or sell them to others for food.  SJ pay the locals 10 ringgit per egg when a nest is found, and then their marine biologists carefully relocate the nest to a controlled location, re-creating the conditions of the nest, such as depth, shape and temperature.

On one of the nights we got back from a day's diving to find that one of the green turtle nests had hatched and we were privileged to hold a few of these amazing little creatures in our hands and help them on their way to the ocean.  111 turtles were released that night, and over 1000 have been released this year.  It was AWESOME!

We met some fantastic people out there, and dived with some incredible people.  Thanks to Rohan, Carys, Dave, Kev, Khai, Charlotte, Sofia, Ollie, Richbro, Astrid, Shane, Eric, Nas and Corey, plus Ann for those morning yoga sessions when we weren't too tired to get out of bed.  And we never even mentioned Aziz and the rest of the band night crew - you guys rocked!  Thanks also to those amazing people we met and dived with out there, Joachim and Cinzia, Sara, Luis and Sarah, and everyone else for making it such a special trip.

We were very tempted to stay on and do our divemaster course but we have other plans now that include climbing Mt Kinabalu in a couple of weeks, then a 9-day tour at the start of July from Darwin through Kakadu down to Uluru.  The divemaster training might have to wait until the end of the year.  We know a number of the DMs and instructors at SJ are keen to put us through our paces!

As usual, some selected pics are here, and the best of our 800 or so via the link on the right!



Matt and his school of bumphead parrotfish