I've been a slack yack in not responding or commenting on posts - so I've
decided to quickly wrap them up in one before speaking about today's dive.
:-)))
Bjorn:
> I agree 100%. I did not mean to disparage Muslims, or hold them more
likely
> to kill than believers in any other system. I don't blame Islam for the
> death of my friends. I was merely commenting on Brad's (now, sadly,
> well-proven) fallacy, that the absence of a particular group ensures
> relative safety. And that, if  I read you correctly, is precisely your own
> view.

It is! :-)

(BTW!  I've received some very flattering comments about your 'Photo Shop'
piece in Nekton.  I just wrote back to everyone and told them that 'Bjorn'
was my pen name!<BWG>  - I didn't really - but it was bloody tempting in
light of the praise!)  :-)))))

(more snips)
> I don't think there is anything wrong with applying SOME caution. Or are
you
> saying that if I sent you a plane ticket to Chechnya (thus taking the
money
> out of the equation), you would go without a care ? :-)

Mate!  Send me the plane ticket.  I've never been there!  :-)))))

Mika wrote:
>>(And we've got a pub close by!)  :-)))<

>That's absolutely wonderful. See ya there 04/2003.

Mate!  The first shout for beer's mine - and 'cause it's you, I'll even
shout the second round!  (That's if I can't persuade Tricky to pay for all
the beer!)  :-)))

BTW! I agree with you completely when, in part, you later wrote:

>Not all that new. I spent a few years (as a kid) in a country with an
>ongoing colonial war. Getting shot at on the road wasn't all that rare.

After two bottles of Phyco-Plonk, we'll have the full story from you!  :-))

Reef Fish wrote:
> Strike, I got a message from the front desk that you called, but didn't
> get the message itself.  :-0)

It said, "Welcome to Oz"<BWG>  - but as Bob's already out on TAKA, (and by
my reckoning even now making the crossing through the Coral Sea to Osprey
Reef) - the rest of the welcome will have to wait until his return!  :-)

Viv (aka Krazy Kiwi) wrote:
> Wed night Hutch, Maryanne, Dave & I had agreed to meet up for a dive in
our
> city's river - the Swan River - after work.

It sounded like a great dive - and leaving the sex to one side <bwg>, the
prawn dinner afterwards had me drooling!  :-)

And Brad wrote - in part:

> I was just struggling to find the words for a response to Bjorn and Strike
> (in the L-L thread) about how I felt cheated, compared to the world
> travelers on this list.

G'Day, Brad!  As I've got older, I've started to realise the truth of
Dorothy's words in the movie, 'The Wizard of Oz':  "There's no place like
home, Toto!"   Never, ever feel cheated!  The world's not that big a place -
and advanced communications and ease of air travel are making it smaller.
Just this morning, Poe, Cynthia and I were talking about the fact that Ralf
'phoned me yesterday, (on his way back from a week in Pakistan) from
Singapore airport, (where he had a 5-hour stop-over), to ask me the name of
the hamburger place that I'd previously recommended to him, in one of the
shopping complexes in Singapore!  :-))))

Regardless of where you live in the world, life's what you want to make of
it!  (The places that I - for example - have been to, just don't exist
anymore: except as, mainly, pleasant memories!)  :-))))

(But make a point of visiting Oz and I'll buy you all the beer you can
handle!)  :-)

And today's dive?

Julian, Dave, Poe and myself.  Apart from at least six Weedy Seadragons;
several very, very large squid, rays, Eastern blue groupers swimming up for
a pat; a camera shy estuarine catfish, we also saw about six wobbegong
sharks.  Ignoring everything that I've learned from John Nitrox, I very
tentatively tweaked the Nurse Shark's Tail.  It obviously thought, "Not
another bloody diver wanting to write a letter home to Mum saying, 'I've
touched a shark'"  and just wriggled further under the overhang.  (I was
hoping it'd shoot out the other end of the overhang and latch onto somebody
else!  It's obviously realised that divers thumping it on the snout with a
clenched fist is both unnecessary and not a good look!)  :-))

Strike