Whale Sharking?
Trip Start
Apr 21, 2009
1
3
16
Trip End
May 07, 2009
Exmouth, Western Australia, Australia
Friday, April 24, 2009
Exmouth, Aborted Whale Shark Experience
Alarm 6.30am, it's time for THE Experience of a lifetime. At the dive shop for 7am we registered and jumped on the bus for the 40 min trip to the jetty. I had a quick search for my PADI diving card but could not find it. This could be trouble but the guy offered to search the PADI database instead. Cool.
On the bus we got the talk about keeping our distance from the large plankton loving mammals. It was the 2nd time I had heard this having been part of an aborted Experience 2 years prior. Sadly on that occasion I had no time to re-book.
Arriving at the Jetty other dive groups were aborting. Our skipper arrived in his rubber dinghy and told us the bad news. For the 2nd time my Whale Shark Experience was canceled with full refund due to freakish weather for time of year. Was this a blessing Mark and I thought?
As the skipper headed back to his boat the wind caught the left hand side of his dinghy over a wave and bang it was overturned. He was fine, other boats came to help him overturn his dinghy, however he did lose his car keys!
Returning to Exmouth we did some scouting for alternative dive shops. In the end we booked and 3 day live aboard tour; 9 day dives and 2 night dives. However we had to wait 6 days to jump on this boat. To work round this we decided to head to Karijini tomorrow.
We had a few jobs to do and this is where I have to thanks Telstra for not delivering this blog earlier. The Numty's at the Wireless Broadband (Non)Help(Fullness) Centre again screwed me around. I phoned saying I could only purchase a standard mobile sim card in remote WA and would like to activate this as a pre-paid wireless broadband sim card. After asking the supervisor the reply was "thats possible sir". So I buy the card, but anticipating the ineptness of Telstra I did not open the packaging. Phoned them back and asked to active the sim as a wireless broadband type. "Sorry Sir, we can't do that". Two Managers later it was again confirmed to me that this was not possible. You damn ****heads Telstra, again I've wasted my time with you. "Sir, if you go to the nearest Telstra shop they can help you", they already knew I was in remote WA so I replyied "I'll just pop in there then, it's only 1000 km away". So sorry again this blog is 'X' time out of date cause I could not find a wireless connection or obtain a Telstra data sim.
To fill in the afternoon we went snorkelling at Surfers Beach. Ok not ideal conditions for snorkelling, but we did see a couple of turtles through the turbulent sand and some tropical fish.
Returning to the camp site we had a swim and then got into the beer while cooking a less than inspiring dinner. So we got chatting to another Western Explorer crew and found there were 2 different bus loads here today. Come 9pm this American guy with a massive lanky head for his overweight frame appeared. He wanted to tell us his story of being kicked off the Western Explorer Bus some few hours earlier for bitching and moaning the whole time. He proceeded to boast about his life and blah blah blah, those American's who you just hate to meet and give the good ones a bad name. Mark was encouraging him but by 11pm we managed to ditch him and chatted to another tour group before heading to bed.
And by the way what is it with tents and blow up mattresses. Your passing a camp site and all you here is heavy breathing, NO it's a couple making out. But when you really think about it some poor bugger is tapping away on a pedal blowing up a mattress that in all fairness will probably be flat by the the time they wake up. When I arrive at a camp site after a long trip I would like to think that I could sleep or sleep with someone instantly....."Sorry love, are you turned on? Please wait while I blow up our bed". Boring! Bring on the 'Swag n Van' or as the Scout teach you, be prepared!
