Well its been over a month since I turned the big 50, and has been a mix of working hard and playing hard!
I have only ticked off a couple of things on my #50thingsb4Im50 list, but have made progress on several others – good things take time ya know! This first 3 months is focusing on fitness goals, so that I will feel more comfortable doing the other stuff later. Plus, I’ve set a goal to get all my 2019 NZ contract work completed by 30 June, so have been head down bum up getting that done – then I can relax for the most of the remainder of the year. I’ve also listed my apartment on AirBnB from 10 June so I have to fit in getting it finished!
Here is a brief video summary of progress
#1 Sleep out on the Reef 6.3.19
My boss had a student doing a night dive so we went out to the Marineworld pontoon on Moore Reef, Cairns. Had to pack dinners and snacks to suit my keto diet, get my stretcher tent etc all carted on to the boat along with the dive gear, and we were ready for 2 days, 1 night out under the stars.
I’m out there loads as that is the boat I work on with students, but being on Marineworld and diving the lagoon after all the sometimes 200+ guests have left was pretty cool….until it wasn’t. The sunset was amazing, and so peaceful out there. 
We did our planned night dive and it was absolutely awesome – the critters that came out to play at night were so different that the usual suspects we see there – I did expect differences, but I was amazed at the different types of crabs, and seeing an Epaulette shark was pretty cool.
We had a couple of ‘quieties’ after the dive and chilled out on the top deck under the stars, talking shit as ya do. As it got dark, we got treated to an amazing electrical storm over the mainland…..way off in the distance….and it went on for ages.
Hit the sack about 10/11pm. Me in my little cocoon of the stretcher tent, my boss and student on air beds.
So when did it become uncool (ok, admittedly yeah, it was kinda cool). Oh at about 1-2am! I woke to the sounds of winds swirling around outside my little cocoon, and some colourful words being yelled by my boss. We scrambled to get their beds down to the lower deck so they were sheltered from the rains that had just started. Once they were settled I went back up top to my wee haven.
For what seemed like 2-3 hours I lay there huddled in my stretcher tent, winds swirling about, rain pelting down, thunder and lighting roaring above me. I could hear the chain d-links on the shade sails rattling – apparently that happens at 30+ knots of wind – but worse was the sound of deck chairs collapsing and sliding around the deck around me, how close were they? was anything above me likely to break and fall?
Then it went dead quiet for a half hour or so before it amped up again so the eye of the storm must have gone straight overhead.
I stayed huddled in my wee cocoon – not sure if I should get out and risk being hit by something or stay huddled. Heck, I was toasty warm and dry so I stayed…but secretly hoped the wind wasn’t so cyclonic that would lift me and my little cocoon up and dump us in the ocean – I have 3 zippers to undo if I had to get out in a hurry!! Common sense prevailed and I knew that wouldn’t happen so the Bose noise cancelling headphones went on and I slipped into lala land. What a wild night lol
In the morning we went for an early dive to explore one of the nearby bommies before the crowds arrived for the day.
Looking forward to giving this experience another go – sans the storm!
#2 Full body mole check 5.3.19
I actually started this process just before my birthday. I’m a skin doctors worst nightmare – redheaded, sun and ocean lover, work on the reef, and spent my childhood summers swimming in the local pools or at the beach, often sans sunscreen. Its a no-brainer that I’m a likely candidate for skin cancers.
I had had a dark spot emerge on my lower lip, noticed it maybe 6 months earlier, and over time, it seemed to move or get bigger. It was so dark in places that it was still visible through a lipstick.
Figured I had better face the music and get it checked out. My doc said “its got to be removed”, but referred me to his colleague who specialised in skin cancers, being facial he didn’t want to just cut it out like he would for a small spot on the arm. The colleague said, ‘yep, its gotta go” – but again, being facial, he referred me to the specialist skin cancer clinic to do it the most effective way since they do facial removals all the time.
You guessed it, the specialists also said its gotta go, so my last hope of keeping the face I was born with was dashed. Not that its amazing or anything, but it is me. Questions started racing – how long would I have to stay out of the water!!!?? Would it feel weird? Would it be cancerous and actually already spread further than what was visible (yes I had “Dr Googled” lip cancer and the results were quite worrying)? What was I gonna look like with a big chunk of lip taken out?. All those expected thoughts raced through my head over the next week – yes in that order haha my immediate concern was how long could I not dive cos the 6 weeks out when I had pneumonia drove me nuts!
Anyhoo, needn’t have worried. The specialist consulted with her senior on best method and they decided to do a 5mm punch biopsy to test the worst part of it, then come back and take the rest out if needed, but they were both confident it wasn’t malignant. Hurt like a mofo for a week, but came back clear so the last little bit remains. They then did the full body mole check and I had to have about 10 suspect spots burned off but otherwise all good…
Warning to others – get the checks done, and don’t leave new spots months before getting them checked…and of course WEAR SUNSCREEN, ALWAYS – and REAPPLY constantly – thats my biggest problem, forgetting to reapply after getting wet.
Other Adventures/Progress
Had an awesome trip down to Brisbane/Gold Coast 8-18 March. Rented an AirBnB apartment right on the riverbank with spectacular views for the first night and had a couple of my favourite Aussies come to stay so we could paint the town red on the friday night. We were joined by another favourite Aussie for a wee bit, but he was too scared to cut loose in town with the girls and bowed out early haha
KL & I polished off a bottle of the delicious Jinzu gin between us, and it showed, with young-gun KL not making it out after dinner to hit the town. We escorted her back to the apartment then Jo and I hit the town. Who would have thought two 50+ year olds would need to carry ID! Couldn’t get into any pubs without it so the Casino it was – and we danced there until 4am then stumbled back to the apartment to wake up KL. Not a bad effort by us (older) birds and a hilarious night had by all.
Tiger Shark!!
We were all booked on a dive trip with Brisbane Scuba – highly recommended operator, check them out on Facebook – the next afternoon. Cementco wreck in the arvo, then a night dive on Flinders Reef. Well, currents didn’t play the game so the wreck wasn’t a goer, but we did two beautiful dives on Flinders Reef – and OMG WE SAW A TIGER SHARK on the night dive!
I was assessing KL on her navigation skills for her course, and she was getting us back to the boat nicely. I saw a shadow in the distance, and thought, “nice’ a reef shark”. Then it circled again and I thought “coooool. thats a bloody big reef shark”. As is typical of sharks, it circled again and my excitement went through the roof as I saw those tell-tale beautiful stripes on its side and thought “farrrrken ace! Thats no reef shark, thats a TIGER”!
I turned around and signalled to the girls by alternately signalling the hand on top of head for shark, the scratching lines across my forearm for tiger shark and fistpumps! No sooner had that happened then it was gone, scared away by another group of divers that had spotted it and went screaming towards it. No pics by anyone unfortunately – my gopro had flooded on first dive 🙁
One of the girls wanted to get back in the boat so I took us back straight away so she could start her safety stop with others, then I signalled to KL I wanted her to do some recipricals – lol any excuse to go out and look for the tiger again – alas we never saw it again. So thrilling, and my first tiger outside of the fairly controlled environment of Beqa Lagoons shark dive team. (That’s where I took the photo below shared just cos I’m so excited I saw one on the night dive but gutted I didn’t get a photo of it)
Sunday 10th we all did a volunteer dive with Environmental Divers, doing the Clean Up Australia Day dive at the Gold Coast seaway. Big haul of rubbish and fishing lines extracted from the ocean and a great day had by all.
I then went up to Mooloolaba with Lisa to dive the HMAS Brisbane again, great dive, great operator (Sunreef), and we followed that with a dive in the Mooloolah river, entering at La Balsa park which I had heard about being a great nudibranch dive. The only thing disappointing about it was I didn’t have the camera – was amazing and so many nudis!
Spent the rest of the week chilling, and catching up on some work, then me and more of my favourite Aussies went to dive Julian Rocks with Blue Bay Divers (another great operator). Finished up the afternoon at the Gold Coast seaway to finish assessing the remaining skills for KL and Tracey’s navigations and Stress and Rescue courses.
50 things list progress
Diet – been going well on my Keto plan, down 10kgs of the 15-20 I want to lose. Jogging every second day, training for the upcoming 10km fun run I entered.
Movies – once a month I want to go to the movies – enforced relaxation, March was the Ocean Film Festival 2019 and it was awesome. Particularly loved (and could watch for hours) this clever little 3-5min short film of drawing patterns in the sand and them getting washed away, then re-drawing…it was mesmerising.
Fiction Books – haven’t allowed myself to ‘waste’ time reading fiction for years, so my goal this year is to change that and read at least one a month. But, I actually spent a lot of time driving and KL & Tracey had put me on to podcasts – you know that little app that comes with the iphone that you dont know what to do with – well I am hooked.
Been listening to loads, and if you are interested, my favourite ones to date are:
The Osher Gunsberg Podcast – I subscribed to his as am loving his interviews, but my favourite by far has been “Creating Lasting Happiness with Eiji Han Shimizu” Eiji was involved in making the ‘Happy’ movie. The interview made me think, Im going to hunt out the movie, and he was amusing – and we have the same favourite english phrase “Fuck It!” So versatile in its use.
Wild Ideas Worth Living – presented by Shelby Stanger – another one I have subscribed to. Also interviews with different amazing people, people who have had a crazy idea, like wanting to ski every ski mountain in the world, or who up sticks and sold everything to go sailing somewhere (much ike my good friends Aron & Craig have done – @arongaladventures ). Looking forward to listening to more.
Volunteering – well I did the volunteer clean up day on the GC, but it was a dive with my mates there, so Im not ticking that off my list. Signing up today to be a volunteer on a reef restoration project in Cairns and that definitely counts! Looking forward to that if I get accepted.
so…….
it has been an awesome first month or so, well on track for several goals, loads of work done, and loads of fun. As usual, I ‘plan’ to post more regularly in future, so the updates won’t be so long, but well, history says I probably wont haha
Favourite saying/Quote of the Month:
“There’s no such thing as negative feedback. Its either invalid and tells you something about the person who gave it, or it is valid and you can learn from it”
Who said it? Cant recall exactly but it was one of the guests on the Wild Ideas podcast. I was driving up the East Coast at the time so didnt take a note of which podcast it was, but its a phrase that stuck in my mind.