G'day Mates! Once again its time for another update. Before I View image
begin, I have to say that everyone here calls each other "mate" all the time. It sounds so stupid coming out of my mouth with an American accent. When I call someone "Mate", it almost feels a little derogatory towards that person. Try saying, "mate" to someone, it just doesn't sound good if you're not Australian or British..................

Anyway, I really really have some catching up to do. I am almost at the end of my Australian experience, but if you were to read my web page you would think that I am half way thru my journey. Seriously, I am 2 weeks behind. The good thing is I am up to date in my journal, so I haven’t forgotten anything that I've done so far.
Upon returning from Fraser Island, my girls and I took the night bus north to Airlie Beach. The bus ride took 14 hours. Its wasn’t that bad to be honest. I slept most of the way, and when I wasn’t sleeping I was talking. When we arrived at our destination we immediately check into out Hostel. This was the first really nice hostel that I had been to. It had a TV, air co, kitchen and large bathroom and shower. We all need a nice break from past “sweat box” hostels. The plan here in Airlie Beach is to sail the “Wit Sundays Islands” and to dive as much as the inner reef that I can. First things first, we were all tired so what did do? We went out drinking View image
. For all those who really know me, I am not a drinker. Since being here, I feel like I am a freshman at collage. We got tanked! We got in at 3:30 that night, and at 7:30 the next morning I was up (totally hung over) boarding my 73-foot maxi-sail boat. I was on the Broomstick boat from Pro-sail View image
this is the kitchen and this is one roomView image
. This was a boat that was a really racing sailboat that sailed races from Australia to South Africa to South American. View image
This is the skpiier of the boat. It was built for 20 huge beefy sailors, so they changed everything to accompany 18 normal size visitors. I went on this trip alone, because the girls wanted to go on the party boat, and I want to be on the Dive boat. Little did I know at the time, I got the best of both worlds. I made 5 dives, one being a night dive, on the Inner Reef. The coral was fantastic, but the visibility was a murky 15-meters. My dive group consisted of a Brit who was my Buddy and a fat Plastic Surgeon (55) and his plastic wife (32) from Dallas Texas. Could you feel the tension building up yet???? When this guy found out that I was a chiropractor, be began to roll his eyes and huff-and-puff loudly. He had his views of chiropractic, although he’d never spoken to a chiropractor before. In short he was an absolute idiot. All he knew was butts and Boobs. I am not the best arguer, but this guy couldn’t even respond to the things that I was saying. He was so ignorant. The only positive thing that came out of our discussions was at the end of the trip he said he enjoyed our conversations and that he had a little more respect for my profession. I did say something that really pissed him off though. Once again for those who don’t really know me, I have a very sarcastic humor. One night at 1:00am View image
on the deck of the boat we were all sitting around playing drinking games. The game we were playing was the name game. It’s a game even a child could play (except for the drinking part). This surgeon kept making the same stupid mistake every time it was his turn. Upon hearing his last mistake, and the laughs at him from the other shipmates, I opened my mouth. This is was came out……”Listen everyone he’s a PLASTIC surgeon not a BRAIN surgeon…. “ Needless to say the boat began to roar with laughter. The surgeon got so pissed; he got up and walked downstairs to bed. Trust me, he disserved it! Every night I slept on the deck of the boat. The wind and the swaying of the boat were so soothing to me that it never took me more than 2 minutes to fall asleep. Glenn, if you’re reading this, I was thinking about you the whole time. My best friend Glenn and I always used to talk about going on a sailing adventure. Unfortunately, it has never come to pass. While on the boat we made a few scenic stops. The most famous of them all was “White Haven Beach” .View image
This was a beach with powder white sand View image
, and clear waterView image
. It was a truly lovely sight. When you see a place like this in, you know that there has to be a God, because it was just that breathtaking View image
. I hope that these photos do it justice. On our last day, we sailed. It was fanatic, we had sustained winds of over 30 knots. This was perfect for this type of vessel. We all had to hang off the side to balance the boat. I enjoyed it the whole time, but the novelty for most people wore off after an hour or so. Sailing is hard work for anyone who hasn’t done it. Ok...Me and the girls are headed off to Magnetic Island.