Home » Australia » Shipwrecked & Shipfaced

Probably one of the biggest things inconveniences about living half way around the world from home is missing your friends and family. As I’m slowly finding out friends made over decades aren’t easily replaced.
So I was delighted when Biesty decided to make his first visit to Oz coincide with my birthday. Even though I’d only seen him the week before the first night in a new city was always going dangerous but with it landing on a Friday……. Toxic!!!!

Shipwrecked & Shipfaced

Stucros
2006-09-27 08:42:26

Displayed times (last time: )

So after the safety presentation The Biesty boys and I decided to ‘push the boat out’ and hit the hit the booze sailer style. Beers, red wine and more beers; a quick toast to our missing crew man Pronzato (always a handy man to have when pushing a boat out) and then over some serious conversation about wether the lights in the sky were satellites or stars it did seem we were the only ones who knew there was a bar.

The next morning we awoke to the dropping of the anchor which is several decibels louder than a numatic drill and
to find out some interesting stats. On the first night The beasty boys and I drunk all the red wine and 4 times more than the entire ship combined… and that’s not counting the time in the pub

We’d chosen our boat It had a dive master and compressor on board so there was a lot of diving to be down on and off the boat…. Although they wouldn’t stamp my log book for the former. I hadn’t done a scuba dive for a couple of years as I have trouble equalising one ear so it was a little disappointing our first dive site visibility was barely 5 meters. However the decongestants I got from the chemist had done the trick and the whole thing was pain free.

That night a beautiful sunset… set the tone for a calm night!!!!
Sunday and the sea and weather had turned for the worse where we went to do our first dive of the day on the outer reef. With the currents strong we had to descend quickly to get to calmer waters but it was too much for my ear and after being stuck around the 5m for a while I decided to give up and get back to the out board - it was then I decided to make that the last dive of my trip.
The last night again was slightly subdued but a few party games kept us entertained

We were staying the night in Airlie Beach (this time in a shared flat rather than dorm) so headed along to our ships landing party which was shared with two other boats that had docked that day. With one long table was set out for each boat we were initially drawn to the table with the familiar faces before being quickly distracted by the table with 20 girls and 2 guys - The Sweedish sunbathing team had indeed been sailing that weekend they just weren’t on our boat……Three stikes and you’re out….. Organiser in the boardroom… YOU’RE FIRED!!!!!!

Back to Sydney and to meet my new but temporary house mate who greeted me with a bottle wine…. Not exactly what was required after such a weekend or carnage but definitely nice to find a new friend on the doorstep and a groovy dancer to go to ‘Good Vibrations’ Festival with. It was around 5 years ago that I missed James Brown at the Brixton Academy and I really did think that it would be my last opportunity to see the aging star. But a prison sentence and world tour brings our paths meet again with him headlining the festival…… I can now not only say that I’ve witnessed the hardest working man in show business but at 73 on of the oldest!!!