On Tue, 20 Feb 2001 David Strike <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>G'Day, Viv!  Thanks for posting Maryanne's impressions of the trip.
>It was a good read.

Yep, it was a good trip considering the weather the day before we drove up
to Geraldton, and day of departure. Luckily only 2 out of 16 of our dive
group were sea sick. And the first day only which was a blessing.
When you get a weather report that sez - high winds, 2 metre waves & 2
metre swell - ya wish you could pay the weather god for calm seas. I've
never rock'n rolled on a boat so much in my life going out to sea. The
safest thing for us all to do was bunk down .. and soon we were all nodding
off to sleep. I felt sorry for our Skipper though .. as he had just flown
back from Dear Old Blighty the day before (after a 30 day holiday), and was
not coping well with the jetlag.

Now, I know that when we say islands everyone has this image of the
tropics - thick tropical vegetation, etc. What really amazed me (guess Im
spoilt a tad from all my overseas dive trips to tropical climes) was how
barren all these islands were. Not a palm tree in sight :-(
Many of the islands we trooped around on for sunset shots were made up of
coral and shells. The island that the Batavia monument stands on had a
little bit of sand and fauna. It was also pegged off in certain areas due
to a ongoing research project on what migratory birds nest there.

The funniest photo I took during this trip was of a bird who was doing her
best to hatch her egg. Her sanctuary from the harsh elements was the small
building that housed the loo :-) At first the fisherfolk said she was a
little cranky at them when they decided to visit the john .. but once she
got use to them she would just fluff around between their feet letting them
know they had a time limit ie it was not playboy magazine break time!
Personally I prefer crosswords ;-)

>>We had lots of laughs, especially instigated by Vivien who has a very
>>naughty sense of mischief.
>
>Maryanne forgot to tell us just how naughty you were!  :-)

MOI!! Sweet, innocent lil me ;-))
Viv