Gone Fishing

Work was so quiet that I just did the unthinkable and accepted an invitation to go sea fishing with a work colleague. I was so close to saying NO but after some cogitation I reneged on my initial thoughts and decided to try something new. Would you believe that a man of my age has never gone fishing? That's because I have never wanted to. There was one little irk, getting up at 4.00am is not my idea of fun; anyhow, I was parked up at the lighthouse in Cleveland at 6.00am, all set for the big day out. The first site of the day was outside the bay in 35m deep water; the sun was hardly over the horizon when we started fishing. Steve showed me how to tie the weight and hook onto the line, then he put a sardine on the hook for bait. I did the easy part and dropped the line into the water, counted to 10 and got a bite. I reeled in a 45cm long snapper in less time than It takes for me to have a dump. I put on some more bait and dropped the line back into the deep blue water; meanwhile Steve caught a 65cm snapper whilst Wayne couldn't catch a cold.

I have to keep reminding myself that we are in the middle of winter and I am out on the ocean wearing a tee shirt at 7.00am, the sky is blue the wind is calm and I have already caught my dinner.

The wind picked up and the boat started bobbing up and down like a turd in a piss pot. Steve said we should head for the bay as it is sheltered and safer. I reeled in the line and bugger me, there was another snapper on the hook. I was really happy now that I had two meals to take home for on the BBQ.

On the way back to inside the bay Wayne spotted spouts of water coming from whales on the north shore of Stradbroke Is. so we went to investigate. By the time we got to Flat Rock they had disappeared. We anchored up and tried our luck once again, we now had the pleasure of a dolphin keeping us company. Beginners luck for me as I didn't get a catch for the rest of the day, but I wasn't the only one and I didn't feel as bad as Wayne, everything he caught was under legal size and I swear that he caught the same fish three times.

We arrived at the yacht club by 11.00am and had a couple of beers under the Queensland sun, it was 27c, not a cloud in sight and the sound of flying foxes was heard all around us, something was spooking them as they are not normally active during the daylight hours.

After our liquid refreshment we chanced our luck fishing inside the bay, the only luck we had was bad luck, but not as bad as the turtle who copped it from a careless boat.

Steve contacted the Coast Guard who advised us to leave the turtle as it is illegal to take them (unless you are an Aborigine)

We explored the oyster beds on the sand banks at low tide and saw quite a few pelicans throughout the day. I also saw a fish eagle from time to time but no more fish.

I got into the car at 3.00pm and went back to work feeling very relaxed.

HMAS Brisbane

Wednesday 25 June 2008

I've been living in Queensland for 4 years now and haven't participated in my favourite pastime of scuba diving since moving to these shores; that was until yesterday, when I got my shit together and made a real effort to get back into it. Firstly, I have Deb to thank for buying me two dives as part of my birthday present back in January, otherwise I would still be procrastinating about how long it has been since I got narced. The dives were only valid for 6 months and I had forgotten all about them until last week and as I didn't want to waste the opportunity and work was quiet, I decided to go for it.

5.00am Dragged myself out of bed and packed up the essentials.

6.00am left for Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast.

7.20am Arrived at the dive shop.

8.30am Loaded up the boat and set off to the dive site.

I took my watch off and had no idea of time after that, but it did take about 30mins to arrive at the drop zone. We got ready to take the plunge into the cold water.

Dive I
43 mins bottom time
Max depth 24 m
Temp 22c

My 5mm wetsuit was a tight fit last time I wore it and now it's so tight that I started to hyperventilate for a while.

The instructor got me to brush up on my skills on the descent line by performing the mask clearing and mask removal test, followed by buddy breathing and reg recovery before starting the dive for real. I got my breathing under control and felt very relaxed as I tagged along with the lovely Cheryl. She took me on a guided tour of the outside of the ship but there wasn't much to see. Maybe I have done too many great dives in the Red Sea on wreck safaris but this ship was only sunk two years ago and it shows. The fish have moved in but there is no colour in barnacles and bi-valves. There isn't any sea weed or hard corals but the visibility was excellent, at least 30m which you would hope for this time of the year. The down side is that good visibility and cold water go together so it's a bit of a hard choice for me as I hate anything cold.

When I ascended from the ship and climbed on board the dive boat it was such a relief to feel the sun on me again. I ripped off my top half and soaked up some cancer rays. The swell of the ocean on such a small boat combined with the smell of neoprene in the back of my throat made me feel all queasy. I had never been sea sick in my life but right then was too close to comfort. Everyone was talking about taking motion sickness pills and telling the German lad not to look down. He felt the same or maybe worse than I but we held our heads up and our stomachs down for the whole one hour surface interval.

Dive No. II
43 mins bottom time
Max depth 25 m
Temp brrrrr

My dive buddy was a 57 year old lady whose husband served on the HMAS Brisbane and she was more than familiar with the layout after almost 20 dives to date. We were put together because we were both good with our air consumption.

Linda had a camera which meant that she was going to go slowly and keep stopping to take photos.

I like buddying up with photographers for this reason alone and she was great to follow around the many rooms.

I heard some divers tales when back on board but couldn't add anything exciting to the tales. My experience was only average but I did see some very large fish and some large shoals in a few of the rooms but nothing to write about. That doesn't mean that I won't do the dive again but it won't be for another few years. Firstly, I need a larger wetsuit and secondly much warmer water.

A Fair Dinkum Aussie

Thursday 8 May 2008

My time has arrived at long last to become an Australian citizen and part of this great country I have chosen to live in for the rest of my life.

So, off I drove to North Lakes with the wife and two kids to attend the Australian Citizenship Ceremony, along with 135 others from within the newly formed Moreton Bay regional council. Pine Rivers Shire, Redland Bay and Caboulture Shire have amalgamated into the second largest council in Australia and all the councillors were there to represent each seat.

Before the proceedings started at 7.00pm, I chatted with a couple from Redland Bay also taking the oath. He was Scottish and his wife was Welsh, they were retired and had lived in N.Z and S.A for the last 15 years but still held onto their strong accents. Danny also needed to hold onto his wig, it did look funny but I managed to keep a straight face whilst listening to his life story. He asked me where I was from and I told him Stafford originally then moved to London where I lived for 15 years. He said that he used to work at Cannock Colliery 20 years ago as an electrician, well can you imagine that? For those of you who don't know, Cannock is 10 mins drive from Stafford, O.K so it's a dump of a place, the houses are build like dominoes and are all subsiding from the many miles of shafts running underneath them, the people talk funny ar kid and Staffordians call them yam yams but it's still good to chat with somebody I have at least one thing in common with.

The Chief Executive called out the names alphabetically of all the people pledging an oath on the bible and they stood up first. I was beginning to think that I was the only heathen in the room as there must have been 120 people standing around me speaking in unison. Pledge 2 was much better, it left out the word God, thank God and I would have proudly stood alone if need be.

The Mayor, Allan Sutherland, handed out the certificates after we had all taken our pledge followed by a free tree handed to us by our local councillor. Mine is Bob Millar, a nice chap who speaks very well and stands tall, he shook my hand and said hello, I said that I can vote for you now that I am a citizen and he said not for another 4 years, that's when the next election will be held. Anyway Bob, I think we need to have a chat about stopping so many foreigners from entering into our country, was what I said. He had a good laugh and gave me a tree to plant. Cya down the pub, I said as I returned to my seat for the end of the ceremony.

We all sang the national anthem and took the oath again.

Zoe and Phoebe has been very well behaved all night despite being hungry, well weren't we all. A room full of people were heading for the tea and cakes in the foyer but I didn't want to eat like that and said let's get something on the way home. It was getting close to 8.45pm and every pub would have taken last orders in the kitchen by 8.30pm, the restaurants open were not going to cater for our girls, I refused to eat at MacDonald or any other junk food drive in fast food chain. We decided to order a pizza and collect it from the village on the way through, they were closed, the fish and chip shop was closed as was anywhere and everywhere in bloody Queensland after dark. Where do all the dope heads go when they get the munchies? The only place open in Samford Village was the Thai take away and the 24hr Caltex. I thought about it and said to Deb, shall we have a great Aussie meal tonight and she agreed for once.

The meat pies were great!

A night to remember.

Love Walk

If a picture paints a thousand words, what does this one say?

No serendipity here, when I saw Love Walk my mind started working overtime, it reminded me of Mincing Lane in EC1 and I wonder how many people walk past this scene every day and don't question the time restrictions in the controlled Zone L (for love), the camera's waiting to capture a knee trembler in the alley after dark already on it's way to the internet at 54.0Mbps and don't forget the phallic road sign indicating that you can only go so deep, I mean far, until you reach a dead end.

And for those into BDSM, willow is used for ass whipping submissive slaves.

Nobody said life was easy, us artists are all troubled deep down but we wouldn't have it any other way.

F***ing Good Wine

Now here's an honest Vintner selling his vino collapso in the old Borough Market in London.

A Posthumous Seat

Whilst walking through Dulwich Park on a lovely sunny day, my photographers eye squinted and saw the potential in this place to rest one's weary feet and feed the ducks, all I simply had to do was change the 'B' to a 'P' in Photoshop..........ha ha ha he he he, who's the prick now *)

The Actor

I received an enquiry from a bloke who wants a quote to build a swimming pool, nothing unusual in itself but he lives in the arsehole of nowhere about 50 klms from my place and I wasn't in the mood to go bush at the drop of a hat so I made out that my diary was so full that the week after next would be the earliest that I could get to him.

We exchanged email and contact details and I waited at home for a week with bugger all to do. When the time came I rang him first to make sure that he was at home and hadn't forgotten our appointment because two weeks ago I got my first 'no show' and was very angry to say the least. Anyway, he was home so I set off on the scenic route via the countryside to miss the traffic jams and school run, don't you just love it when the kids are on holiday and the roads are clear of all those overweight mums taking their offspring to school in the Chelsea tractor, I think kids should start school at 10.00am to stagger the road congestion.

Found the road but the numbers were all mixed up with odds and evens on both sides of the road, rang up my appointment and got the voicemail on his mobile phone so I stopped an old chap walking his dog and quizzed him to confirm if it was me or the town planners that are stupid, well he had about as much savvy as the man on the bloody moon and I detected an English accent which reminded me of the country folk back home, you know what I mean, the light's on but nobody is at home. I did a U turn and found the house quite easily once I looked on the other side of the road.

This middle aged bloke came out to greet me in his old clothes and introduced himself, we shook hands and I followed him into the back yard to look at where he wanted to build a swimming pool. He looked at me and said 'I saw the way you looked at me and I am not rich if that's what you are thinking, just because I am an actor everyone who comes out here thinks that I have lots of money'. Now this took me by surprise because I didn't have a clue who he was and told him so, to which he replied, I'm on McClouds Daughters on T.V and was in the film Wolf Creek. I said don't worry mate, I don't watch soap opera's or go to the movies and I am not an autograph hunter either. Must have upset him slightly because he told me that the show he is in isn't a soap opera but a drama. As far as I'm concerned it's the same shit, different pile so we moved on to talking about his pool.

He told me not to charge him more than $50,000 and then proceeded to tell me that it has to be 15 long lagoon style pool with rocks around the waterline etc. I said that my prices are the same for everyone and actors don't get treated any different from the rest. We talked about the problem with all the trees surrounding the pool and I advised him to cut a lot of them down to let in some light and reduce the amount of leaves from ending up in the water, to which he replied, 'I hate cutting down trees'. I agreed with him truthfully then reminded him that these trees will only grow to drop branches and the roots will get damaged in the excavation which could cause them to die of shock. Better to cut them down and plant some rainforest species in place of the spindly gums, but hey, what the hell does an Englishman know about Australian trees, here stands before me the man who used to host Better Homes and Gardens up until 1996. Sorry mate, I still don't recognise you was living in the UK until 2004 and if you are so good at building houses and timber decks when you aren't acting..........what do you need me for? why don't you build your own pool ( is what I felt like saying but instead I just put the price up in my mind by $2000)

We laughed and joked, exchanged ideas and I quizzed him some more. When he told me that he has had 7 people before me to quote, alarm bells started ringing and I asked him what was wrong with them. He said that they didn't have any vision, couldn't think laterally and were wanting to charge him more because they thought that he could afford it. Time for me to bow out gracefully and warn him that he wants a lot of pool for $50k.

Watch this space......

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0418877/