Fish Rock Cave

The celebration of Jesus continues by diving with grey nurse sharks.

Ayis found this place on the central coast of New South Wales where you can dive in the breeding grounds of grey nurse sharks. It was awesome. You swim through this canal where all the sharks are passing through. From the depths you will see this dark shape getting closer and closer. His teeth are out and he is not really swimming so it looks as if this shark is magically floating toward you and you can see him checking you out. It is like playing a game of chicken with the shark. the more still you are the closer they will come. I never won cause it just freaked me out too much to be in the path of these big animals even if they never bite humans. "There is a first time for everything" is my motto.

After we pass through this alley, we hit the entrance to a cave filled with schools of fish, rock lobsters, HUGE turtles, HUGE sting rays, and the ever so stealth woobegongs (which everywhere else in the world is called carpet sharks, see right). Also you get to surface inside the cave where there is an air pocket, but you are still 12 ft below the water. But, there is little to no light, so you have to use a flashlight. This makes it easy for creatures and/or rock outcroppings to sneak up on you. Combine this with the fact that there is a bit of current in the cave so that you have to hold on to the rocks when the current threatens to sweep you backwards and have quick reflexes when the current is pushing you along. There is some good movies that I have posted on you tube (using the apt alias, Dr. Fantazajazz) and that show up on the video bar (if I did it right). Inside the small cave were some ridiculously large sting rays, which left very little room for you to give the sting rays their appropriate respect. Ayis laughed at me for literally climbing the walls of the cave trying to get out of the way of the rays. And our dive guide laughed at me for almost stepping on a woobegong and then freaking out when I realised what it was. There was also a nearly blind sea turtle at the exit of the cave who will try and bite whatever he thinks he can see just in case it is food. It was my first experience having to gently hold back a rabid sea turtle as it snaps at me.

We had camped the night before at Trial Bay which was an amazing Parks department campsite that had some resident wild kangaroos. Some of them even stayed to watch a movie with us, dubbed "Hoppy Cinema". Ayis and I practiced our tumbling maneuvers and general looking pretty during sunset. One must practice!

All in all, it was a fantastic dive. It's just a shame Ayis didn't get to see the end of it.

No time for grieving, I have my illustrious career as an underwater DJ to look after. Peace out!

Easter bluesfest

There is no better way to celebrate the original vagabond then to spend Easter at the East Coast Blues & Roots Festival in Byron Bay. We had a blast and I got to hear some fantastic music. The greatest part was getting to hear Don McLean sing "American Pie" and John Fogerty do all his Credence Clearwater Revival hits. This is music that my dad taught me about and it is stuff that I never thought I would get to hear preformed live by their original songwriters in my lifetime. It was spectacular! Check out the video bar to hear/see some of these oldies get down.

On Thursday, we got to Ballina just in time to set up our tent and then head to Byron for Xavier Rudd's performance. We met up with Flosi and Newbes and we all jammed out and waited for John Butler Trio to come on. However, after a couple of John Butler Trio's songs I started to feel a bit dizzy and then I fainted. After that, I didn't really feel like hanging out with a bunch of hippies so Ayis drove us back to Ballina. The next day, of course, when we saw Newbes and Flosi again they thought it was hilarious to pretend to faint at the mere mention of John Butler's name. Apparently this joke never gets old as it was used for the whole rest of the trip.

Austin, Ayis' brother, came down on Saturday and Sunday to go to the festival with us and do some surfing/beach Frisbee/wrestling. The whole Bluesfest was quite good. We saw some good acts, some not so good acts, and some really tripped out people. As you can see Ayis seems to have had a real good time and really enjoyed the music. One of my highlights was listening to the Cat Empire while standing on Austin's shoulders. It was kind of scary but really awesome cause being short you never really get to see anything. I liked it so much I wanted to practice with Ayis so that I could do that all the time. It didn't really work out so well when we tried it.

Newish bands to check out:

Bedouin Soundclash-Canadian fusion of rock, reggae, punk, and soul

GOCOO + GoRo-Maybe only good live, but they rocked out. Thing of an Asian "stomp" but with more indigenous drums and very angry looking chicks

Goyte-A younger Moby

True Live-Hip hop with a 4 string orchestra

O.A.R.-Washington DC rock group, the sax player is ridiculously cute!

Rodrigo y Gabriela- This duo did things on the guitar I am pretty sure have never been done before

My old favourites of Bluesfest:

John Butler Trio

Xavier Rudd

The Lost Dogs

John Fogerty

Don McLean

KT Tunstall

Thank God for Catholics. . .

Otherwise there would be no good parties.

Gatorade bottle filled with vodka? wearing almost no clothes? people of the same gender making out? If you answered yes to all of these questions then you must be at the Sydney gay & lesbian Mardi Gras parade! Even better than last year. Ellis let me dress him up. I repeat Ellis let me pick his outfit. He is not a smart man, but you gotta love his spirit. And boy, did he get heaps of attention. Gay men love him! We couldn't get anyone else in the crew to dress up, but we made a spectacular couple. Not with each other of course, Angela was my girlfriend and Gary was Ellis' boyfriend and I don't think either one of them was excited about their duty. We had a great time running around the streets and watching the dikes on bikes ride by on their big motorcycles with their ta-tas showing. We basically just yelled and screamed and ran around for hours. Towards the end of the night we all managed to lose each other and after partaking of some street pizza Ang, Ellis, and myself went back to Ang's house and passed out. Her poor couch looked like fairies had attacked it since it was covered in glitter and I had to sleep all night in my bathing suit because Ang had double knotted it so well I couldn't get out of it. I think the pictures tell the story best.

Left: Even our drinks get into the spirit.

Center: Gramps is oh so cool.

Right: Ang is fussin' at Gary about something.