aggienaut: (Numbat)

Sunday, February 18th - In the dark evening with a smattering of raindrops upon the window (just enough to make pictures come out really badly) we drove up the tall narrow ramp -- more like a one lane bridge really. The lights of the classic Titanic-esque hull of the Queen Mary II are just off to our right and a little further forward, making it seem smaller than the red and white Spirit of Tasmania II that looms up right in front of us. While the whole front of the Queenscliff ferries opens like a whaleshark, the Spirit of Tasmania seems to suck them aboard with a straw, into a narrow one-car-wide entrance at the very beak of the prow.

   Once aboard we were directed up a ramp to park in one of three lines of cars on the port side .. it took awhile for me to orient myself since we had driven in from the front and were facing aft -- it being already dark even once we were moving one got no sense of direction looknig out of the windows so I kept having a hard time keeping track of which was port or starboard or fore or aft. Once parked we took everything we'd need for the night (no vehicle access during transit) and headed to the central stairwells. I was excited because I haven't ever been on a cruise or overnight ferry (except this one time in Sweden in 1999 which is longer ago than I can remember). Family cabins hadn't been available anymore when dad booked most of a week previously, so mom was in a four person women's cabin and dad and I were in a similar men's cabin. The hallways were so narrow one had to back up against the wall to let another person pass. The rooms were of course small but comfortable, with two bunkbeds, a desk that I can't imagine anyone using since it would obstruct everyone else and the llight wouldn't be appreciated t night, and a bathroom. After putting our stuff on our beds we went upstairs -- our car was on deck 6, rooms on deck 8, most of the length of deck 7 was "lounge," chairs and TVs. Deck 9 was crew only and 10 was also sort of lounge style but mostly deserted -- maybe it's more popular on day transits. There was of course a bar on the main lounge deck, but they had a very very small selection, not one beer remotely resembling craft and didn't even KNOW what a the traditional sailor's drink the "dark and stormy" is (ginger beer and rum), which is weird because its not nearly as obscure in Aus as in the States, most bars in Australia seem to have it in can. There was also a restaurant which we didn't partake of outbound but on our return we did and some of the buffet style food was pretty good. At the front (or was it aft, I really don't know!) was a room that was kept dark and full of recliners for people who didn't want to fork out the dough for a cabin -- I'm told it's really uncomfortable, and really, after paying $100ish (AUD, so like $75US), it seems silly to balk at paying another $33aud for a bunk in the dorm style cabins. Another economic mystery is it seemed like some people do this transit all the time, but flying costs abut HALF AS MUCH (google search just now is giving me $89 and $112 round trip options) and takes a fraction of the time. Obv the ferry is the only option if you want to take your car but seemed like some of the regulars take the ferry to commute regularly for work between Melbourne and Tassie and you really don't need a car to get around Melbourne.


Web photo since I don't have any worth posting from this episode but believe every entry should have a picture.

   We settled down to watch the Olympics, which fortunately was on about half the TVs in the lounge. As I mentioned before, we as a family don't watch much TV, but we have always watched the olympics. To me the Olympics is a special family tradition that feels almost like Christmas, since I can remember even as a very young kid getting to stay up later than usual to watch the olympics with my parents. We also none of us follow team sports at all, personally I can't even begin to comprehend how people can get excited about teams that really just represent a brand name, none of the players come from the city they "represent" and get traded around all the time, and one pointless season of pointless sporting and appalling scandals follows endlessly on another. But things like the Olympics I feel represent inspiring acts of true sportsmanship and striving for excellence, as well as national honor in fun way which allows one to get excited and root for countries one has a connection to.

   My parents being early-birds as usual went to bed much earlier than me, but I was enjoying the Olympics and wanted to still be up when we crossed the bar out of the broad bay Melbourne is at the back of. I believe we had departed around 9pm, and for the first few hours there was no feeling at all of wave movement. Finally, around 12:40am the vessel began to noticably buck a bit. I went out on deck to find the air warm despite the brisk ocean breeze, and we were just passing the Queencliff lighthouse. I walked through to the port side and saw the darker Point Nepean sliding past with the Sorrento lights further down the peninsula. At this point the boat had enough of a galloping motion that one stumbled around like a drunkard. Most of the rest of the passengers had gone to bed and crewmembers were cleaning up the lounge area. I've had a few locals ask me since if we had a "rough passage," and I'm never sure what to say, was this rough? It's relative. I've sailed in gale conditions with 18 foot swells in a 100 foot schooner, when even the most experienced crewmember kept a barf bag at hand any time they were belowdecks -- THAT was "rough." This was just enough to be fun and make me nostalgic for my sailing days.

   Made my way to my cabin happily bouncing off the walls like I was in a pinball machine. Tried to enter the cabin as quietly as I could and climbed onto my bunk with just the light from my phone -- apparently not the norm of courtesy here: my mom's roommates apparently routinely turned on the lights when they got up (and one was in the bathroom for two hours in the morning!), and when one of my roommates (who had a remarkable ability to loudly mumble profanities in his sleep) got up at 5am he had no compunction about turning on the blazing lights. The ship's announcements gave everyone a wake up announcement 45 minutes from arrival, I think around 7:15, using nice non-jarring tones. Dad and I talked a bit to the fourth member of our cabin, a regular on this route, who gave us some tips to see in Tassie. I forget exactly how we found mom, maybe she tapped on our door, anyway it turned out she'd already been up for some time (see also roommates turning on lights in her room). We went up to deck 10 to get some coffee and watch Tasmania approach. At first it appeared as a series of mountains with golden light shining down upon it through the clouds. Gradually it got closer and bigger until the town of Devonport lay around us in the dull grey morning light. Drivers were instructed to board their cars deck by deck and presently our call came. Recall we'd gone up a ramp to park, we appeared to be on an entire deck that would elevator down when the deck below cleared, and from a few cars ahead of us one could see the cars exiting below out the big opening in the back. A car near the very front of one of the rows below us (with door open here), an elegant classic car of some type, was unable to start and holding up the whole row behind it. After some ten minutes a RACV (Australian AAA) car came on on the ramp and jumped it -- I was really surprised the ferry didn't have portable jumping kits itself considering that out of a load of 700 cars at least one probably won't start every time. Finally our deck lowered down and we were off down the ramp and onto Tasmanian soil. I kept asking my parents "can you believe we're in Tasmania?? Did you ever think you' be in Tasmania??" Would we see the famous Tasmanian Devil? Maybe discover the last Tasmanian Tiger?? Tasmanian Lion??? Visit dismal swamps? Drive into a mine shaft? Eat scallop pies*?? All that and more will be answered in future entries!!

*just last night my Australian friends laughed at me for the way I say scallop ("scah-lop") and instructed me it's, let me see if I can get this right, ::does jaw excercises::, "skwau--loup?"

aggienaut: (Numbat)
   okay I'm now five months behind on updating on the last Turkey trip! Better continue!



   As I'm sure you remember as if it was just yesterday, in my last entry on the subject we had just had our first day at sea on the "Turquoise Coast," seeing many neat things already.

Tuesday, August 27th
   In the morning we spent another few hours cruising through yet another fine day on the water, until we came to the town of Kaş (pronounced "Cash") draped precariously on the steep hillsides around the sea. I think our main purpose here was actually just so the boat could resupply, but we were all turned loose upon the little town.

   It had a very cute and touristy little downtown area. We strolled up the steep narrow streets in search of some tombs but soon decided it was just way too hot for a trek to these tombs which were mostly way up the slope. So we came back down to the cute downtown area.


Here you can see a tomb in the background, but the tombs up on the slope were supposed to be huge and carved into the cliff.

   Instead we struck off in search of an ancient Roman amphitheatre, which we duly found atop a nearby sunbaked hill (that's Kaş in the background). The amphitheatre had /has a fine view out to sea, I can easily imagine how pleasant it must have been to sit there on a warm summer evening, watching some entertainment with the view to sea out beyond it.

   Then we returned to the boat and we proceeded westward along the coast for several more hours. We anchored off some cove which I don't recall as being particularly noteworthy. We all went to sleep early (after another no doubt sumptuous dinner, the dinner were all just delicious), because we knew we'd be getting underway early in the morning.

Tuesday, August 27th
   Most of us were asleep on the foredeck when the vessel got underway around 0300 in the morning. Soon we were bucking and galloping over large swells at a pretty good clip. It reminded me of many a high sea I've been in and I smiled and rolled over. Several passengers I believe got up and went below, hah, fools! -- that never makes seasickness better!
   We arrived at "Butterfly Valley" early in the morning (maybe 0700?). The valley consists of a narrow valley with a lush floor full of vegetation surrounded on both sides by extremely tall steep cliffs. The captain seemed intent on just serving breakfast hear and moving on, talking kind of dismissively about the valley, saying they wouldn't run a boat to shore so we'd have to swim, and basically "you can go ashore if you really want to or we could get underway for Oludeniz immediately and have more time at that beach." Fortunately a few of us looked at eachother and said well no we definitely want to go ashore here.
   Its a bit of a hike to the back end of the valley, so I swam ashore holding my hiking boots above my head. Also didn't get any pictures here, due to the precarious landing, but here's a video of some bro with a stupid hat doing some kind of travel report on the place that pretty much shows what it looks like.
   Several tents were pitched just off the beach, and there were already some campers strolling about. Contrary to what the abovementioned bro says in his video, there is actually an overland trail down some crevasse into the gorge. Was also annoyed to discovered you had to pay a nominal fee (5 lira) to leave the beach, which the captain hadn't advised us of. Fortunately, one of my companions happened to have enough money on him to cover himself and I. Up at the back end of the canyon another trail leads who knows how far back, up a series of waterfalls. I climbed a few places where one had to climb up an old battered rope, but decided not to continue past a point where one would have to cross through a waterfall itself, over slimey rocks, hanging onto the decrepid decaying rope for dear life. Only saw a few butterflies. And soon we needed to return!

Oludeniz
   Our next stop, after several more hours travel, was the famous Oludeniz beach. We anchored where you see those boats in the bottom center in that picture I just linked, and I swam around the point to the beach. It had been described as a "world famous" amazing beach. Well the water was warm and crystal clear, it sure had that going for it, but there weren't any waves and the beach was all a-pebbly. Maybe I'm spoiled because I've lived all my life by the "world famous" southern California beaches and then lived right on a gorgeous beautiful beach in Australia. But worst of all, I don't know how they managed to get the beach looking so empty in that last pic, here's another one that's still very optimistic compared to what I actually experienced there --- it was a thriving rookery of pale, pasty bulgey Russian walruses in speedoes, packing every square foot of the gravelly strand!
   There's a boardwalk all along the beach and some shops so I walked up and down a bit in search of raki, since we'd run out aboardship, but was ultimately unsuccessful.

   Returned to the boat, we had lunch -- if I wasn't writing this five months later I'd probably be able to tell you what delicious things we ate ;) and then we cast off and set off for our next destination, "St Nicholas Island!"
   St Nick's, AKA Gemiler_Island, is a small island not far from Oludeniz, and it is completely covered with monastic ruins. It is believed to be the original resting place of St Nicholas (AKA Santa Claus) -- but then his remains were pilfered away by other churches eager to have such holy relics, naturally.
   I spent the afternoon snorkeling -- there were many underwater ruins here. Other boats packed with tourists (who looked mainly Turkish) from nearby Fethiye or Oludeniz would come up lower long ramps to the shore to disgorge their hordes onto the island or the shallow waters of the shore, and motorboats pulling inflated tubes would come by plying the area for customers -- several of my fellow passengers went on several of these tubing adventures. Most remarkably, a husband and wife team came rowing up in a boat completely lacking an engine, but with a stove to make sort of pancakes on, the pancakes sold like, well, hotcakes!


Seen here, Nick the Canadian hurries aboard for pancakes while the Australians bob about in the water.

   We also played backgammon while on breaks from swimming. While in Kas we had looked for a chess set, all being more familiar with that, but failing to find an affordable one we ended up making due with backgammon, which was probably for the best, since its an important Turkish cultural thing -- practically a national past time. The captain was very patient when playing with us and would explain why we didn't want to make the move we did, and/or why he was making the move he did. He also had an uncanny ability to roll the die and get exactly what he wanted -- I chalked that up to the magical abilities all captains have. Marta, one of cute Spanish girls, got very good at backgammon herself.
   That evening around sunset several of us went ashore (via smallboat) because we'd been advised that was the best time to see the ruins. Fortunately this time I thought to ask if there was a fee to go on the island and was told there was. Almost fell for it again! And personally I think the "wait till sunset" was terrible advice -- the sun sets behind a hill and you're left just trying to look at the ruins in the gathering dimness and hurry before its too dark!! There were a lot of cool ruins though, I think I even found where they wouldn't let Rudolph play in the reindeer games! Also there was a neat long processional hall.

   That night I remember we had the biggest most delicious dinner of all. I don't know how he did it, the one cook in the little galley just had dish after dish rolling out of there. At one end of the table people were telling stories of drunken adventures, while at the end I was at we were discussing current events. Then we played drinking games, notably that counting to fifteen one from Olympos. Soon we'd finished all the beer (and the raki was still gone) and the captain had to break into his personal stash to keep everyone supplied. Yet another lovely warm summer evening on the water stretched merrily into the night!



Next: the Faraway Land & City of Light! In which I photograph a tortoise.
aggienaut: (Borg)

   My camera is fubar!! )=!!!!

   Yesterday my boss Dave, his friend Bruce, and technician Ryan went out on Dave's new boat. We went out to San Clemente Island, which is 55 nautical miles off the coast (about twice as far as Catalina Island). We saw several whales, as well as dolphins and sea lions. I got pictures of all these things, and a picture of Dave in mid air as he dove off the top of his boat, a picture I was particularly excited about. The weather was mostly real nice, and I swam around out by San Clemente. Unfortunately coming back however the water was real choppy and a fog bank just offshore gave us about 15 feet of visibility for the last half hour (fortunately we had radar and a GPS chartplotter).
   Unfortunately, my relatively new camera was subjected to some salt water spray from the wet return trip. I was optimistic that the camera would be fine since it didnt' look very wet, just some drips on the outside, and was working once we disembarked. This morning, however, attempts to turn it on would only make the "print" button glow for a moment (?!), even after I replaced the batteries. I drove over asap to the Canon corporate office and repair center in Irvine, but its closed on weekends. I'm extremely concerned about my camera )= I've heard that salt-water is extremely corrosive to cameras and I want to get it attention as soon as possible. )= )=

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