On the Bottom Half

Hostie with the Mostie.

Okay, so hostie-ing is to diving as... as... ______ is to flying; well, frankly there's nothing like it in flying. If there were, I'd surely be flying now... I was scooting around town occupying myself trying to find a non-leather watch strap, when I went to the Taka dive shop to pick up a log book and a diving slate. What did I see there but a photo, sitting serenly on some shelving, of an astronaut recently travelled with Taka. Anyone who knows me will know what happened next...

One thing led to another and I got another hostie-ing spot, but this time on Taka, the boat I head out with tomorrow for the full cost 5-day/4-night trip! I got to chatting with the clerk in the dive shop when we discovered that we shared a similar, and very personal, event in aviation. After sharing some emotions I went on with the story of my next couple of weeks and mentioned that I was hostie-ing on the 20th to 25th. She screwed her face up and asked when I was leaving Cairns. I said 'the 27th, why?' She said 'I'm quite short of hosties at the moment, can you do the 14th to the 17th?' I said 'Sure!'. She said 'Just don't mention to the crew that you're going to be a hostie until the 14th.' ... So there, almost a month of diving on the Reef and most of it for free! Who knew such things were possible?

Those of you travelling to Cairns with a diving certification - go hostie-ing! If anyone knows of this type of thing relating to flying, please let me know.

Yesterday was a bit of tropical adventure... I took a day trip up to the Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tripbulation with Billy Tea Safaris. The rainforest is amazing. There are so many living things everywhere you look, it's almost almost overwhelming. Mosquitoes are in the mix as well, though, so look out. Saw a few crocs on a river cruise as well, but the ones we saw on the Adelaide River back in Kakadu were much closer and more active. Still an intimidating animal. Cape Tribulation is one of the only places where a rainforest bows to the sea and the beach has a fringing reef of the Great Barrier Reef present there as well. Tourism operators calls this 'where the reef meets the sea' and go further to claim that this only occurs in two places in the world, both in Australia. Cool to sea, though. My first real live reef!

We made billy tea (lots of tea leaves put into water boiled by campfire in a 'billy' - a rough and timble can used for camping; crunch a couple of eucalyptus leaves into the billy as well and you have yourself some yummy tea) and ate lots of tropical fruits: sapote, dragon fruit, pineapple, organic banana, passionfruit, and paw paw. Went for swim in a freshwater creek there as well - it was very refreshing in that the water was only 24 degrees! However, lots of people were complaining that it was 'too cold'. My reply: 'Go surfing on west Vancouver Island - that's cold. This is balmy.' Ah we Canadians - nothing is too cold for us ;-)

Anyway, got to go, chat at cha soon...

posted by Kyle @ 00:21