A few Scuba Tales

I’ve been scuba diving a lot the past few weeks, first on the Great barrier reef in Australia, and now in Thailand on Koh Tao.  I think one of my only regrets so far on my travels is not spending more time on the Great barrier reef because the diving there totally exceeded my expectations. I did a live aboard dive boat for 2 days, but I could have stayed there for a month! But in those 2 days I got to do 7 dives which was pretty good.



We saw this Maori wrasse hanging around the dive boat every day! He was like a big puppy and liked to have his chin scratched and loved attention from people. He would come right up to you when you held your hand out for him!

When I first got in that water, I couldn’t stop smiling and thinking to myself, I am actually diving the great barrier reef, how cool is this?!?! But unfortunately, when you smile while scuba-ing, you kinda lose the seal along the edge of your mask and it starts to leak. So I had to try my best to keep smiling to a minimum. That was a hard task, because we I saw SO many cool things and was pretty much in a constant state of excitement! Over the course of the 7 dives, I saw lots of sharks. Mostly White-tip and grey reef sharks. Some were just sleeping on the bottom, others were just cruising by. One swam near me and looked at me with his big eye! But those species are typically only a few feet long, so not too scary thankfully. Plus I really love sharks and would hug them if I could. We saw 3 or 4 sea turtles, and got to follow a few as they foraged for food amongst the corals or just swam along lazily. They really are so chill and don’t seem to care about humans at all! On one dive I spotted a gigantic Moray eel with his gaping mouth open exposing his sharp scary teeth which were being cleaned by some very brave cleaner wrasse. Then I got attacked by a territorial breeding titan triggerfish who wouldn’t stop biting my fins! On one small clump of coral, we saw 4 different species of Nemo anemone fish.  I haven’t even mentioned how many cool fish there were, but there were a lot! Heaps as the Australians would say! And the corals were just beautiful. My favourite was the fluorescent pink one.  Unfortunately I don't have many pics, just ones I've stolen from other people.

 

one of my diving buddies

 


some fishies



more fishies

I did a night dive there, and it was one of the coolest experiences of my life.  There were about 15 4 foot long Giant Trevally fish following us around the whole dive. They have learned how to use the dive lights to hunt in the night time, so anywhere a light would shine, the giant fish would swoop in and snap up any unlucky fish that was illuminated at the time. It was totally wild having these giant hunters swimming at top speed and having a feeding frenzy all around me and my dive partners. It was a bit scary and so cool at the same time! Then when we came back to the dive boat, there were about 8 sharks hanging around and feeding on the smaller fish attracted to the dive boat lights. We just hovered a few meters below the surface and watched the sharks circle above as they hunted the smaller fish. It was totally amazing. The best dive of my life for sure.

 

Stoked for the night dive in the rain!

 
 


This is the dive platform at the back of the boat. There are at least 4 smallish sharks in this pic!!

 

 

This was how happy I was when we came back alive! haha :)

I’m in Thailand now and I just finished doing my Advanced Adventurer dive course. The diving here has been ok. I guess it’s the time of year or because the weather has been really windy, but the visibility is really shit! I haven’t felt like I’ve had a really good dive since I’ve been here. But we did get to do some cool stuff on the course. We did a wreck dive of an old war ship with giant guns, and did some buoyancy obstacle courses that were really fun! We got to practice our safety skills on our night dive when we actually lost a member of our group. Seriously, we were going through the water with little torches in really low visibility, when suddenly we realized that one guy was gone. OH SHIT! So we went to the surface as per usual safety procedures, but he was no where to be seen. We were just floating on the surface for about 15 minutes, in the dark, trying to spot his light since he should have surfaced too (assuming nothing seriously bad had gone wrong). But because of the wind, the waves were huge and there was a strong surface current, so we were all getting pounded with salt water and had to keep kicking to maintain our position. It was pretty intense! Finally a few minutes later our guide spotted the light in the distance, and we got our man back. He had accidentally gone off with another group underwater without realizing. Scary stuff for a little while, but so glad he’s ok.  

 

There is nothing like the feeling of being weightless, floating gently through the water feeling like you belong underwater with the fishies.  I love it.

 

The Endlessly Changing Horizon

Back in Toronto I worked for the Canadian Wildlife Service. I started there in 2005 as an intern running the volunteer shorebird survey. This meant that I got to drive around the entire province visiting volunteers at their local beaches, do surveys with them, and then go off to remote sites by myself and do more surveys there. I absolutely loved it! I couldn’t believe they were paying me to do it! But that was a 9 month contract. When that was up, it just so happened that a co-worker of mine went on maternity leave, and my boss at the time was able to slot me in to the one year full time position doing environmental assessments. My fate for the next 8 years was sealed. The co-worker never came back, and I was able to stay on and eventually got a full time position with CWS. It was great. I had a good balance between field work and office work. I felt like I was able to make a small difference in the world by helping major projects like offshore oil rigs, mines and hydroelectric developments decrease their impact on species at risk and migratory birds, by making sure that they were evaluating impacts and compensating for anything negative that would happen.  During the summers I got to go out and work on seabirds, banding chicks and counting nests. Those times were like heaven to me!

 

Me and a Puffin way back in 2008-ish

 

But last year, the government of Canada basically decided that economic developments were way more important than the environment. I wrote a blog about their destruction of all of our environmental laws and the sneaky ways they did it here: http://jontheflipside.blogspot.com/2013/08/stop-ruining-canada-stephen-harper.html

The changes trickled down to my level and we were being told to copy and paste a standard set of advice for every single project across the whole country, with little room left for creative solutions that would be best for conservation.  I started to feel the suffocation of sitting behind a desk, where all I was doing now was rubber stamping mega projects without really doing anything to better the environment. I started to feel like I couldn’t do it anymore, definitely not for the next 30 years of my life.

 

Me at my desk, looking oh so excited about an EA.

 

My ideal co-worker, a 4 week old Great blue heron

 

Baby Great egret

 


Another cool coworker, a baby Tern

My ideal office, a boat on the Great Lakes

So after a lot of thought, and thanks to my excellent boss, I was able to take a year leave of absence. I was finally uncaged, ready to see the beauty that I knew existed in the world and soak it all in. I went hiking in the Patagonian Andes, spotted the big 5 in Africa and cuddled lots of sick penguins, helped out the Giant Tortoises in Galapagos, drove down the west coast of America with one of my best friends in the world, became a marine warrior in Fiji, traveled New Zealand with the best people ever, and saw kangaroos in Australia. Right now I’m sitting in Thailand on the beach with a beer, peering out into the colourful ocean sunset. The world is as beautiful as I always knew it was.

 

This is just amazing!

But I was always traveling knowing I had to go back to work someday. But how could I possibly go back to sit at a desk and help push big mines through in areas I knew were as close to pristine as you could get?! It just seemed so wrong.  I couldn’t bear to go back and work for a government that was just so blatantly fucking up my beautiful country. I would have felt like a total hypocrite and failure if I went back. So I just had to leave my job. Part of me feels like I should have stayed and tried to fight to make things better, but I know in reality that would have been impossible. So this is my own personal protest. (I also urge everyone to not vote for Stephen Harper in the next election!!) I know there is something else out there for me. So now for the first time ever, I’m totally free! No job, no boyfriend, no ties anywhere. Being free- it feels a little scary, but so good! Bring on the adventure, I’m ready!

My friend Bobby posted this on FB the day before I sent my email to my boss finally quitting my job. It totally spoke to me and I took it as a sign that it was the right decision. Bring on my endlessly changing horizon and a new and different sun each day. I'm ready :)

 

I Made Some Pretty Damn Good Australian Lemonade

 Most of you guys probably know that one of my missions has been to do lots of volunteer projects around the world on my year off. Well, I sorta got shafted from doing any biology related volunteering in Australia, so at the last moment I planned an impromptu trip up the east coast. When life give you lemons, make lemonade right?! Well, here's my Australian lemonade... it turned out pretty damn good :)



Well actually it didn't start out so hot. I went camping in the Blue Mountains, and the thunder rolled in and it started pouring right when I was setting up my tent. Notice the nice river flowing through the grass and under my tent on the right. Good way to test out my new gear anyway.



I am happy, really I swear! I love camping...
At least all my gear passed the test, nothing got soaked!



Woke up the next morning to the most beautiful view and sunshine, YAY!



So I went on a hike through the mountains. These are the three sisters, some cool kinda famous rocks.



I saw these kookaburras sitting in a tree



The views were spectacular!



So many pretty waterfalls



This Sulfur crested cockatoo was just chilling out by the waterfall, and there were tons of them flying around making super loud squaks the whole hike.



Then this guy popped out of the bush and started shaking his tail feathers at me!



The next day I went to the Jenolan caves. I love caves!

 


It was pretty commercial, but it was cool because they had some crazy lighting set up, making the cave look really dramatic!



Stalactite ceiling



This part of the cave ceiling looked like lots of bacon strips hanging down!



mmmmmm bacon.

 

Saw this parrot eating a french fry, mmmm french fries



A few days later I went to Fraser Island, it's the world's largest sand island. It's just basically over 100 km's of beautiful beach like this :)

 

Me and my group drove around in this 4x4, offroad!



We had beach story time



We heard about the story of this shipwreck that washed up on shore. Too bad I can't really remember the story, but it was a really important ship during the war, I swear.

 

We went swimming in this beautiful lake. It even had lots of giant catfish in it!



Then this funny looking Mohawk pigeon gave me the eye



This spider was gigantic!!!



Then I went on a sailboat for a few days to the Whitsunday Islands



The sunset was incredible.



I saw this badass Sea Eagle



Enjoying the sunshine on Whitehaven beach. I think I actually have a real live tan, for the first time in my life ever!!! I am pretty excited about it!



My sailing boat bro's



Whitehaven beach, isn't this one of the most beautiful beaches on the planet??!!!



We got to try hoisting the sails, really hard work!



Chill time



Sea turtle spotting at the beach



Poker and beer with my new Irish buds, life is good!



When I got up north in Cairns, I went for a rainforest tour. We saw this incredible cathedral fig tree that is over 1000 years old!



This pelican got photobombed by a duck



Enjoying the view of the giant scaly bark pine tree



It's a pretty cool view!

 

Took a swing on a vine, like you do in the jungle



Went turtle spotting in the lake



Swam in a freezing cold waterfall



We had a great group!



Amazing views of the Atherton Tablelands



And here's a funny pic I took of a very surprised kangaroo!

 That's it for now. It's been an amazing journey in Australia. I have an epic blog post coming up about diving the Great Barrier Reef which was one of the highlights of my life so far!!! More on that later :)