Hey everyone! I'm back too! WOW! What a trip and what an adventure!First thank you George for the great report and recap...you ROCK!!! And you were a great dive buddy! We did some pretty agressive dives under a variety of conditions and you handled them like a champ! It was easy to be a buddy to someone who kept improving with each dive! And of course you did have 2 buddies most of the time...went straight for the women and stayed with them too!
I know MaryAnne aka SeaTheWorld would agree as well!
Speaking of MaryAnne aka SeaTheWorld...well she is off to a great start both in seeing the world and in her diving career! Not very many divers decide to tackle AUSTRALIA after their OW certification however two women did just that...MaryAnne aka SeaTheWorld and Elise aka Lil Mermaid! Both of them did awesome and this was no small feat given the variety of diving we did...walls, reefs, pinacles. drift dives, drift dives that had no current, live boat exits, live boat entries, dingy rope rides to and from divesites, dingy rides, swims with the current and against (some ripping requiring perfect timing to not miss the boat or the mooring line), navigation dives, deep dives, shallow dives, transistion dives and night dives. For a new diver we just about covered every type of diving you could do and while it was a bit daunting at times...it also was the experience of a lifetime! Both of you ladies did AWESOME and I'd love to have you BOTH on a trip again SOON!
Brian aka Wildcard couldn't have done this without you...as our trip instructor, resident sleep with anyone roommate and well closet something or other...you were a blast and certainly a fun addition to the trip! (Can't wait for the next installment!)
Mark aka CapnJack you were a great help on the trip lending assistance where needed and a great DM too boot! Thank you for consolidating pictures...I knew they would come in handy. Please send a copy to me as well if you would.
Shawn aka ShawnAbbott and I were flight buddies all the way home...seems we were both able to go standby all the way home on an 8:40 flight that then got delayed to 9:05 but was weight restricted so while our bags traveled at 9:05 we traveled at 9:30 instead. Oh well...it was still about 1.5 hours sooner than I would have gotten home so I was not complaining and Shawn was in the isle seat next to mine so we got to continue the fun of the trip abit longer!
TO ALL: REGARDING PICTURES!!! We can help you upload them to the site if you need help and we will also upload some of the video from the trip. Send your request for help to admin@singledivers.com and ask Simon aka Shadragon to help you or you can pm him directly. He has set up a photo gallery
here for our pictures and while we can not upload them in a group
and they have to be loaded one by one
it is very important to load some of them on the site so that others will want to join in on future trips. Without pictures we'd have no future trips.
Note: You can also load some as uploads/thumbnails to this thread or load them in the gallery and then link from the gallery to the thread as a image function to have it appear in the thread.
Another offer was made by Jodi aka DownUnderJodi our new friend living in Australia...that she could give us access to her server (she is in the IT business) and we could all upload and very easily transfer files back and forth. She is traveling for a few more days so we'd have to wait until she and Brian aka Wildcard and Andy aka BikiniBrit get done!
Ok ok so while not official screen names they will do for now until they can get home and create their own!
As usual we'll have an 'after trip' forum set up today and we'll send you all info today on how to access it. The trip photo gallery is
here and we'll be uploadins some of the trip video to the site so you can see it. Shadragon will have to do it for us so pop him a request with your video attached and/or pics you want help uplaoding!
