Second day in Brisbane

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Our second day down under has come to an end. We have now checked in at our cozy granny flat in Mermaid Waters (Gold Coast) and will stay here for the next four weeks. I so look forward to not living in our suitcases, have a look at what we got in them and buy whatever we need.

It was raining when we woke up today. When we checked out at 10am, we weren’t really in the mood to go out, but the drizzle wasn’t too bad, and our sense of adventure got the better of us. We put the bags in the hotel and went on a walkabout. Even if it was grey and a bi of drizzle, it wasn’t so bad. 19C and the rain was barely noticable. It got warm as soon as we walked, but a bit chilly when we sat down. It’s very comfortable. But colder than in Sweden right now apparently, haha!

We walked across Story Bridge and through Kangaroo Point and along the Brisbane River to Southbank. We had a coffee at The Jetty, walked around, hid from swooping birds (no, we didn’t, it’s not swooping season yet, but Mikael had a small bird almost flying into his head honestly), saw the man-made beach Streets Beach, were super tourist-y by the BRISBANE sign, watched the Wheel of Brisbane (a copy of Lisebergshjulet) and spent some time inside the Queensland Museum.

The Queensland Museum was free and we watched both of their current exhibitions; Insect Agency and Dinosaurs Unearthed: Explore Prehistoric Queensland. Did you know that there are 1,25 million insects to every human on Earth? Or that Australia imported beetles 50 years ago to deal with a huge pasture poo problem? Or that three quarters of all of Australia’s 450 species of butterflies live in Qld? I really enjoyed that exhibition on insects. Mikael got really tired (and doesn’t like bugs for some reasons, something new I learned about him after more than four years) and we didn’t spend as much time as I wanted in the dinosaur exhibition. It was so interesting. The magafauna of Australia, wow! Supercool!

Mikael skipped lunch because he had troubles with his stomach after last night’s pasta. But I got hungry so we went to a sushi place in Queen Street. In Australia, you get a sushi roll whole, and eat it like it is. So weird. But it was soooo good! Also, the soy was packaged in small fish bottles. Very cute!

We walked back to the hotel, ordered an uber and Mikael fell asleep in the car down to Mermaid Waters. Since we arrived, we have had a lovely video call with his dad and wife and will now go to bed, at 8pm 😊 We are exhausted to say the least. 18k steps yesterday, 15k steps today. 33h of traveling the day before and lots of emotions.

First day in Brisbane

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We have arrived down under! And more specifically in Brisbane, Queensland. We flew in last night at 8pm after 28h traveling. 33h door to door, which isn’t too bad considering where we are, haha! It took us 32h to Malapascua, Philippines and that was only for a two week vacation. Although, there might be a bit more to see and explore in Australia (a whole continent) than Malapascua, a 5sq km big island with no motor traffic.

Yesterday (the past two days?) was chaotic and stressful. The day started with us having to leave behind two 23kg suitcases since we had been promised that extra bags at the airport would cost 2000 SEK each. But when they told us they would be 13 000 SEK, we had to leave them behind for our mom’s to take home. I think most of my clothes were in one of them. Most of Mikael’s shoes. Our diving equipment… That was the first set back.

Our first flight to London was short but okay, nothing special. Three hours layover in London, then onto the 17h flight to Perth with Qantas that turned into a bit more than 16 due to good conditions. That’s a long flight! But it was really nice. Good service, good food, free snack and drink bar, good places to stand up and stretch. I had a bit of bad luck with my window neighbor. A plus size person. It was fine up until they fell asleep and just couldn’t keep their arms together and one of them kept falling down on me. Every two seconds for about half an hour. I didn’t really get to enjoy the full seat I paid for which was setback number two.

The flight was on time, but we still only had an hour before the connecting flight to Brisbane. So the crew put us closer to the front so we could get off the plane quicker.

Perth Airport was surprisingly small, considering it is the gateway to Australia basically. We had to retrieve our bags to check them in again after going through customs and border control. This was setback number three. One of the bags had ripped open in the zipper. At this point, I was kinda just laughing at the trail of underwear the bag must have left behind, haha. Good thing we vacuum packed most of our stuff.

Border Control was super quick, asked us if everything we declared (wood works – Dalahästar, small wooden and painted horses from middle of Sweden, feathers and shells – on the dream catchers we got from Mikael’s mom, and Mikaels prescribed medication) came from Sweden and didn’t even ask to see it, even if we presented them to her anyway. We were grateful, with nothing to hide, and super stressed out about the connecting flight. At the new check-in desk, we got some tape to hold the bag together as much as we could and then went straight to the gate, straight onto the plane and were among the very last people to board. Insane!

I thought there would be a setback number four when we saw that a full rugby team joined our flight. But they were so quiet during the whole flight and I managed to get some sleep after catching up with people with amazing flight wifi!

Taxi to our hotel, where we had amazing view over Story Bridge. Went to bed at around 11pm and had a hard time getting up at 9am so we wouldn’t miss breakfast.

We stayed in the hotel room for a bit after and didn’t head out until at like 2pm. I don’t know if we were still tired, but we were so cold in the room. People are not joking about that!

Today was all about walking around CBD, shopping what we “lost” and always asking ourselves if we were truly here. It is unreal!

After half a day walking around here, I have to say that I do have a good feeling about this city. I know we only saw a small portion of it, but it was pleasant and not as big as we initially thought. On the map, it looks like Brisbane is just a lot of urban sprawl with family houses and everything central, is pretty much within walking distance. I might have to change that statement once we’ve seen more of the city, haha!

We walked to Brisbane City Botanic Garden where we saw bin chickens (White Ibis is more correct I guess) and water dragons (lizards, didn’t get a picture of them unfortunately, only a video on Instagram stories). It’s so cool seeing something out of the ordinary Swedish wildlife.

I got a couple of new pants since I think all of mine except the ones I flew here in (which I was planning on throwing away). Mikael got a new pair of shoes after walking around in thongs (flip flops) all day, haha.

We thought it would be easy to find a restaurant by the river, but it turned out to only be bars. And the one we actually found and sat down by was expensive. But it was our first night out in Australia, so we made it a bit luxurious.

On our way back to the hotel, we saw a huge flying fox! It even stopped in a tree to hang upside down just above our heads for a few seconds before flying away again. So cool!

We have also made our family members get Instagram and Snapchat so we can spam them with videos and pictures instantaneously, haha!

The big ferries going on the Brisbane River are called CityCats and the small ones are called KittyCats. I find that hilarious!

Review of “Winter’s Heart” by Robert Jordan

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Title: Winter’s Heart
Author: Robert Jordan
Series: Wheel of Time #9
Narrator: Michael Kramer and Kate Reading
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 24 hours 12 minutes
Published: 2011, MacMillan Audio (originally published 2000)
My Grade: 2.5 out of 5

GOODREADS’ DESCRIPTION

Rand is on the run with Min, and in Cairhein, Cadsuane is trying to figure out where he is headed. Rand’s destination is, in fact, one she has never considered.

Mazrim Taim, leader of the Black Tower, is revealed to be a liar. But what is he up to?

Faile, with the Aiel Maidens, Bain and Chiad, and her companions, Queen Alliandre and Morgase, is prisoner of Savanna’s sept.

Perrin is desperately searching for Faile. With Elyas Machera, Berelain, the Prophet and a very mixed “army” of disparate forces, he is moving through country rife with bandits and roving Seanchan. The Forsaken are ever more present, and united, and the man called Slayer stalks Tel’aran’rhiod and the wolfdream.

In Ebou Dar, the Seanchan princess known as Daughter of the Nine Moons arrives–and Mat, who had been recuperating in the Tarasin Palace, is introduced to her. Will the marriage that has been foretold come about?

There are neither beginnings or endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it is a beginning….

 

MY REVIEW

Taking a break from Wheel of Time didn’t really help me get my motivation back. When will this flat story get some action going? It feels like it’s not going anywhere and Jordan gets so little done in so many words. Time-wise, I’m not sure during how long this full book takes place. It felt like years, but probably weren’t more than a few weeks or so.

What is good though, is that Winter’s Heart only follows a few characters so it’s much easier to get into the story. Although, when there is one chapter or one part of a chapter that has a brand new character and we don’t know who that is, it’s impossible to guess. The world just feels too big.

I’m keeping my hopes up though, it will get better! And even if it is flat and very easy to zone out, the 10% at the end are super eventful! It also does feel very real. The writing is amazing. I just have a hard time with this dragged out story. Does it really have to be 15 books? Oh well. It did end on a very very exciting note though. That’s basically what all of them did so far. 2.5 out of 5. Not bad, not amazing.

Review of “The Return of the King” by J.R.R. Tolkien

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Title: The Return of the King
Author: J.R.R. Tolkien
Series: The Lord of the Rings #2
Narrator: Andy Serkis
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 21 hours 52 minutes
Published: 2021, HarperCollins (originally published 1955)
My Grade: 5 out of 5

GOODREADS’ DESCRIPTION

As the Shadow of Mordor grows across the land, the Companions of the Ring have become involved in separate adventures. Aragorn, revealed as the hidden heir of the ancient Kings of the West, has joined with the Riders of Rohan against the forces of Isengard, and takes part in the desperate victory of the Hornburg. Merry and Pippin, captured by Orcs, escape into Fangorn Forest and there encounter the Ents. Gandalf has miraculously returned and defeated the evil wizard, Saruman. Sam has left his master for dead after a battle with the giant spider, Shelob; but Frodo is still alive — now in the foul hands of the Orcs.

And all the while the armies of the Dark Lord are massing as the One Ring draws ever nearer to the Cracks of Doom.

 

MY REVIEW

This trilogy was over so fast! Even with 20 hours per book, they were over in no time. Andy Serkis was amazing. I honestly think he could pull off any book. The story is great, but he takes it to higher levels, for sure!

Even though Serkis is doing a wonderful job of narrating, it is still fairly easy to zone out every now and then. For example during the description of Minas Tirith. Especially (unfortunately, I think I have to say), since I “know” what it looks like from the movies. Another thing about that scene: the great battle at Minas Tirith was over in no time, very uneventful and was over after only 30% of the book. I am actually happy about battles not taking over the story like it can in more modern books. I find it hard to follow along. So this works out perfect for me. The focus of Tolkien is definitely on dialogue and world building rather than action packed battle scenes.


Book 5 only follows Aragorn and that part of the story and book 6 follows Frodo and Sam. I do think that I like it that way. The story becomes whole in a different way. Even if the timeline is not being followed by the minute.

The ending is different! Both compared to the movie but it also has another feeling compared to the rest of the book. It’s almost a bit comical. And perhaps a bit out of time and place?

I am glad I finally got to finish this trilogy. When I was 10 or 12 or something, I was too young and barely got through the first two. I should have continued though since The Two Towers was the slowest one. The ending gets a strong 5 out of five possible.

32h of traveling

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27 February 20:04

32h door to door once again, but the opposite direction for all the transportation modes. In total, we’ve been awake for 42h except for the very irregular sleep you get on airplanes.

It was an intense day, and it was very hard to say goodbye to Blue Corals and the amazing staff there. We got a bag of local bananas for the road and said our goodbyes.

The road back to Cebu was so green, there were fields, greenery, goats and houses hidden by the darkness when we arrived two weeks ago.

We were early at the airport, traffic wasn’t so bad. Rather early than late. Managed to squeeze in a group meeting right before boarding, easing a bit into normality before returning to work in two days.

On the first flight, we watched Dune Part I in preparation for Dune Part II on Thursday with mom! It is so good! I then watched several other movies the rest of the way. I barely slept at all and didn’t read much. Also watched the new Super Mario Bros movie. It was funny! In Doha, we somehow managed to get on the First Class bus shuttle to the airplane. So unnecessary to have like 8 leather chairs facing the middle of the bus just for the shuttle, no? But it was fancy at least trying out first class on the bus, haha!

The train ride back home to Gothenburg from Copenhagen Airport was horrible. It was 3C, grey and wet. I have already set my eyes on my next travel destination: Maldives! Maybe as a honeymoon?

We were picked up by Mikael’s mom who borrowed the car this week. She took us grocery shopping. Then we unpacked everything and we are totally ready for bed after 42h “awake”. What a long day. Yet it somehow went very quickly which I’m grateful for.

North Beach

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25 February 21:34

 

The day we have been dreading finally arrived and is now over: our last day on this paradise island. 11 days goes so fast, yet it feels like we did manage to do so much. Tonight at dinner we both felt like our last dive was ages ago (three days ago), yet we still had 14 dives before then. I wish we could have dived more though. Today at Kimud, they spotted rays. I wish I was more interested in the small things underwater, but it’s the big ones that fascinates me and we “only” saw the thresher sharks and both white and black tipped reef sharks. Maybe before next trip I will try to read up on marine life so I can get more excited about the smaller things too. I did appreciate fish during most dives honestly. There are some really nice ones, but I don’t know the names of them all. Whale shark would have been a dream come true, but they don’t stay in one place, they are always on the move, and to spot one where humans are not constantly feeding them, is super rare, although we heard about whale sharks at several times during our stay from people around us.

Low tide deluxe.

Finally nutella pancakes!

The day before flying, you are not allowed to dive. Well, technically it is 24h before flying, but our wetsuits just got dry and to quick dry them in just one day just didn’t seem possible. So we had one last day of relaxing and exploring.

We have been staying at Bounty Beach in the south of the island and have mainly only been here. We’ve been in to the market and “downtown” a few times, but never up north. After breakfast today, we got driven on two mopeds up to North Beach. It took around 10 minutes along the highway which was mostly concrete, but several patches of just sand as well. It was interesting! And I was glad that they were both driving very carefully. We saw many places on the way, like the power plant on the island and the animal shelter where you apparently can live for free if you help out with the animals there. I learned about this on our full moon trip that there’s a website called Workaway where you can live for free at places as long as you volunteer with different things. Often food is included. How great isn’t that? I will definitely remember that for another time.

North Beach had the most amazing sand I’ve ever seen. It was so fine! The beach itself was just a long and wide sandy beach. We started our exploring by sitting down at Avila dive resort for a beer and coconut drink. We then explored to the east where the ruins still stand after the big typhoon in 2013 that destroyed 90% of the whole island. It’s such a shame they never rebuilt. I wonder why. We took a quick dip in the water and then headed back to our hotel where we had leftovers for lunch in the hammocks outside our hotel.

It’s been completely overcast today, which actually made the day perfect. Mikael has a hard time with the heat, so exploring and just hanging out worked out just fine when he wasn’t melting away. We then went to the fancy resort next door, Blanco Beach Resort where they have beach beds and good drinks. We spent the rest of the day there. Cappuccino’s and coconut drinks, some reading, some rain actually. The second time there is a small rainfall going on for around 30 minutes during the whole stay. And the first full day with clouds. If it was cloudy in the morning previously, it was completely blue by lunch.

We showered at the hotel and went for dinner. It was hard to decide what to have for our last night, but I don’t regret having the taco pizza. Mikael had the magic noodles. I’m gonna miss that place and their wonderful food.

Back at the hotel again, we packed and now we have set our alarms for 7am so we have plenty of time for breakfast and saying goodbye to the staff, they have truly been incredible and we’ve really felt at home at Blue Corals Beach Resort. I can really recommend this place! And don’t book through hotels.com or booking.com. Contact them directly, much cheaper!

I really feel like we have been away for a long time. Of course, I am missing the cats like crazy, I’m missing my bed and my thick cover (even if it is warm, I don’t really like sleeping under just a sheet, it’s too little material above me). But I like the tempo here. No stress, it’s warm, it’s beautiful, so many colors, everything is done outdoors, the diving. The people. I have never met a more friendly people before. They are all happy and eager to help and they sing. They all just seem to spontaneously burst into singing without even thinking about it. It’s beautiful! Imagine being so happy that you just start singing without even realizing it? And the children, always out and about, always curious and friendly. That one day when Mikael was playing with his drone, he had two very small boys chasing it on the beach. They were so fascinated and had the time of their lives (until one of them followed it so hard that he stumbled on the sand and scraped his knees).

I will miss this place. It was genuine. It was beautiful. It gave us peace and hopefully a calm mindset to bring back home.

Full moon adventure

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24 February 21:02

 

It feels great to be back on solid ground and in an airconditioned hotel room. But doing this small excursion to remote islands was really great!

The whole trip was of course organized but due to low tide and other things, it felt like they were winging most of it, haha. We were delayed from Malapascua for 1,5h but I don’t think that would have made a huge difference with the tides. The tides are honestly not something I understand, I thought I did, but apparently they are not on cycles.

We got the impression that this trip was all about having a nice time, spending the night at the beach, stargazing, watching the full moon, sit by the bonfire, listen to live music and watch fire dancers. But both Mikael and I got a bit wary at the briefing when a few people only had two questions; will there be beer and will it be cold. You see where this is going, right? Basically the whole trip there was people being drunk and loud.

There were drums on the boat which was very cool. They were so good and it was effectful to leave Bounty Beach to the sound of drums.

Before really leaving Malapascua, we stopped at the north end of the island to go snorkeling for a bit. Mikael gave up when his mask kept fogging up. But my mask managed better and I stayed in for a bit. The snorkeling at Lapus Lapus was really great! The bottom was full of mostly soft corals and so many fishes!

Galaxy

The next stop was the very local island of Carnaza where we would spend the night on one of the beaches. Due to the low tide, the big boat couldn’t get all the way in to the shore, so we had dinner on the boat after watching the sunset. It was a bit cloudy so the sunset wasn’t extraordinary. On the complete opposite side of the boat was the full moon already visible. That was kinda cool!

Carneza Island

Dinner was traditional Filipino style, served on big banana leaves and eaten with your hands. Very strange to eat with your hands, I’m sure it takes some technique to get that right also.

The low tide wasn’t going anywhere so eventually we got two local fishing boats acting as taxis for all of us 18 passengers, taking two at a time. These boats are super tiny and only supposed to carry one person. So when me and Mikael both went on, there were very few cm left of the boat above the surface. Scary stuff! Also it was really dark. Exciting! Some people swam to shore.

After all of us came to land, the big boat was light enough to cruise over the corals and dock on the beach so we could get everything on land. We set up tents, started the fire, and the owner of the restaurant who organized this trip gathered everyone who wanted to join for a shaman ceremony on the beach. I joined on the side by meditating/sleeping on the coral-y sand. That calmed everyone down! That took about an hour and after that it was live music and firedancing. Not long after that, these two introverts went to their tiny, tiny tent to sleep. But first we watched some bioluminescense further down on the beach. It was not much but it was there!

Normally, that tent would have been too small for me, I couldn’t lie straight in it. But we both managed to fit somehow. We were not prepared just getting a tent from the organizers, so we had nothing to lie on except two beach towels. The sand was full of corals and very hard, but we still managed to sleep pretty well, even if it was a game of human tetris when we needed to switch.

The full moon was incredible! I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a full moon like this before. It was so bright, we cast very distinct shadows, almost like in daylight. I tried taking pictures but it was hard. Full moon with basically no light pollution was something truly magical.

 

The next morning, today, we woke up with the sunlight. Breakfast was served by the water, sandwiches, ginger tea and incredible local fruit such as mango and banana. So good! But best was the homemade peanut butter. The local peanuts are much sweeter than what we are used to.

The tide was super low this morning so the boat had gone out during the night. We spent some time at the beach, I was reading a bit, sitting in the water. Such a nice morning! While Mikael was meditating, he got a local friend in the size of a child with a toy gun who just sat next to him when he was breathing, haha! I have to say (maybe again), but wow, the kids here are adorable! They are so happy to see tourists, so friendly, curious, polite, asking for our names and welcoming us to the island and so on. I love it! When we eventually left, there were so many kids saying bye and waving us off. Just amazing!

The village on Carneza

The beach we slept on.

The next stop of the trip was the extremely small island of Lamanok which apparently doesn’t even exist according to Google Maps. The owner’s friend lives on it. There were some people fishing right outside the island when we arrived, they were surrounding fish and scaring them into the net. It looked very interesting but probably worth it.

We also saw a caravan of small fishing boats on the way and we stopped in the middle of the ocean to buy some extremely local octopus from them. So funny!

The island is basically just two rocks with a coral beach in between. Really beautiful but I really don’t like these beaches that are made up of dead corals. It’s like walking on Lego, but worse. We went into the water quick, took some pictures and then we had a lunch similar to dinner last night on the boat again. It was so good!

Lamanok Island

The trip back to Malapascua took around two hours. Everyone was so tired and most people slept. I read! Mikael slept and had a company in the form of the owner’s big wolf-like dog, Galaxy. It was so cute when they were sitting together.

Back at the hotel, we took a well-needed shower, got dressed and walked over to Tepanee resort to watch the sunset before heading to Villa Potenciana for dinner on the beach. Magical noodles with homemade bread was incredible!

Two very long days and we are so tired now again. Tomorrow is our last full day on the island! I hope we get to max it out before leaving on Monday morning. I am ready to go home, we both miss the cats a lot. But at the same time, I’m so inspired by everyone I’ve talked to on this trip who just travels the world right now. I’m jealous. Our two weeks felt puny compared to their 3, 6, 8 months trips around Asia mostly. Why didn’t I do that when I was younger?

Kimud Shoal and night dive at Evo Reef

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22 February 22:00

Our last dive on Malapascua has come and gone. And what a great day of diving it has been!

The day started with our alarms going off at 4am because the boat to Kimud Shoal left at 5am. It was extremely low tide this morning so we had to walk a fair bit out to reach the small boat that would take us to the bigger one. The night sky was all clear and the stars were on such display. Magical start of the day. It then got better when we sailed into the sunrise and watched a big pod of dolphins jumping. Just magical!

We were first at the divesite, the waters were so calm, the visibility a refresh sight after yesterday’s extremely bad visibility at Deep Rock. Not too many thresher sharks at first, and the same goes for divers. But at the second dive, there were many more of both. I had some sharks swimming real close to me this time. It was incredible and I got it all on video! Unfortunately on my GoPro Hero 4, which is ancient compared to Mikaels’s DJI Osmo Action 4. I’m still excited to see the results when we have time to go through it all (once we get back home).

During this dive, we also saw a swimming moray (they usually only sit in their holes gaping at people) and huge schools of fish out in the blue. I actually kept looking out there to see if there was a whale shark casually swimming by, but no. That would have made a perfect day even perfecterer.

Moray half out of his hole swimming. That’s not something you see every day.

We were done with our two shark dives at 9:15 and headed back to the island. Great, so much more time to chill before the third dive of the day.

During our surface interval, Mikael and I found an Australian girl from Perth who joined us at Blanco Beach Resort where she is staying for some snorkeling. We hung out the full day, had aloe massages together, had lunch, went snorkeling. It was really great. On the southwest point of the island, there is a marine protected area where no boats are allowed, strict rules of not standing, just snorkeling around. And what’s so cool about this place (the corals weren’t that impressive if you compare to what we’ve seen diving) is who you can snorkel with: baby black-tipped reef sharks! We saw so many and at the end of our snorkeling trip, I had four at the same time in front of me. Adorable!

Something that’s not as adorable was the huge sea snake we also saw. Terrified fascination kept me going closer for that money shot, but shit, I was scared! I know they’re deadly but also have super tiny mouths and teeth so far back that that can’t really bite you. But not having a wetsuit on that would definitely get the best out of a potential bite was scary. We survived though!

Sea snake!

Baby sharks:

At 17:00 we were back at the dive center and geared up for our very first nightdive. We went to Evo Reef, many artificial reefs. There was a thresher shark structure, some other sunken things and sure enough, many things came to life during the night. But since it was our first night dive, we were more focused on doing everything right and not losing each other, rather than looking at macro things. We did however see some cool things like a big crab, lionfish, moray eel, mandarin (not sure exactly but I think I might have seen them while trying to get my head in between the other 5 divers who were also looking at the same time) and many other things like swarming fish, mating fish, sea stars as usual, sea urchins.

We started the dive as the sun was setting so at first, we didn’t use the torches. Eventually though, the sun disappeared and it grew darker and darker. The visibility was okay, but it was hard to keep track of who belonged to our group since there were so many other divers. I think that was great though, because even if it obviously was dark all around, you didn’t feel alone and isolated and closed in. That was what I had been afraid of, feeling claustrophobic. But it was fine. It was a very different experience diving when it was dark, for sure. But not sure if that is something I want to do a lot of in the future. It was cool to have tried and it might get cooler with time and experience, but right now I feel fine with diving during the day with great visibility (I miss Gili T where all the dives had 50+ m visibility, we really took that for granted).

One cool crab, that was completely oval.

These night dive pictures are just to show you how hard it is to take pictures while night diving, haha!

Super tired, but not very hungry, the three of us went to dinner at the next door restaurant, Villa Potenciana. Mikael and I shared the tacco pizza and Emma told us about diving in Western Australia. They have hammerheads there! And sea lions, and a ton of other cool things. Apparently it’s not just the Great Barrier Reef that has nice diving (I’ve also actually heard that the Great Barrier Reef is kinda overrated). One day, I’m gonna dive both coasts! We also heard this morning that you can dive with hammerheads outside of Tokyo.

What a great day! But we are so exhausted now. Diving in itself is not too bad. But all the fuss around it is really hard! But it is so worth it! In total, we did 14 dives each during this stay. I am now up to 31 logged dives, Mikael at 27 and I more than doubled my accumulated divetime. Great job!

Deep Rock

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21 February 20:03

 

I think we have finally come to the vacation mode where we don’t mind spending the morning in the hotel room and on the balcony just relaxing, going through photos and videos. And reading some. Our dive today didn’t start until 14:00. We thought it might be worth seeing a new divesite and not just diving with sharks. It was an okay dive, but we have definitely had better ones. Both here and in Indonesia.

This dive was a soft coral pinnacle, and sure enough, there were so many soft coral on the bottom at 24m. Many cool seastars as usual, we saw a pygmy seahorse, a cow fish which are so cool. I also found a dive writing board that one of the divemasters took since he didn’t have one. I also found a silicone muffin form that I brought up to the surface and threw away. I pick up everything I see and I’m so glad it isn’t too much at these dive sites.

The visibility was really bad, only like 10m. At Kimud Shoal, we had around 40m and on Gili Trawangan it was always 50+, on all dives. So the last three dives have not been optimal. Mikael is consuming much more air than normal probably due to stress of not seeing. What if we missed a whale shark today in the distance because we couldn’t see?

Pygmy seahorses. Somewhere in this picture!

Cow fish

Mikael, I and one of the divemasters ascended earlier due to Mikael running out of air. At the surface there was a pretty strong current and I started drifting away from the boat. But it worked out fine. We circled around for like 10minutes before the other ones surfaced. On the way back, on the waves, we saw lots of fly fish and we decided to skip the night dive today because Mikael has been feeling a bit off the past few nights. I think the divemaster looked a bit disappointed for the last minute cancellation, but not feeling okay while diving is not good. So we signed up for thresher shark dives tomorrow at 5am and a night dive at 17:30. It’s our last day of diving so we will max it! No matter what. The Kimud Shoal dive starts at 5am because they are going to Gato Island also. We thought about signing up for both of those big trips, but 4 dives in one day? On two divesites that are in the opposites directions. We both don’t feel 100% on these boat rides and forcing 4 dives out of our last diving day doesn’t quite feel alluring. Even if we want to give Gato another chance, I just don’t really see it being worth it. So Kimud Shoal and thresher sharks and our first night dive sounds like a good last day of diving.

Dinner once again at our new favorite restaurant, Villa Potenciana with leftovers for tomorrow’s breakfast. I can’t believe our alarms will go off at 4am, haha! And we’re on vacation, crazy people.

Today’s sunset looked like Mordor.

 

 

Relaxing

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20 February 20:42

 

Today was a really pleasant day. No more burns, only relaxation, no diving. We had signed up for a soft coral dive at 14:00, but we decided this morning that we wanted a full day of recovery.

Slept in a bit, had breakfast, then Mikael played with the drone for a bit while I was in a hammock on the beach reading. Then it was time for lunch and we went back to Villa Potenciana where we had dinner yesterday. It was so good! Today I had the Indian Pie and wow. They looked like pierogi and had both savory things inside but also mango and raisins. Really good and so pricey! 50 SEK (250 PHP) for a main course. We talked to the owner for a bit and he told us that he liked our vibe and asked if we wanted to join a full moon excursion this Friday. It would include two islands that are not on Google Maps, overnight stay on one of them, lots of snorkeling, good food, good vibes, bonfires, fire dancers, stargazing. For only 3000 PHP (560 SEK). Yes, of course! That will be epic!

Indian pie

After lunch we relaxed a bit on the hotel room. It was midday and the sun was so strong anyway. And then we took a trip to the local market, bought some bread at the bakery, some drinks and then went to Tepanee Beach Resort that is super close to our hotel. Mikael had seen massage beds there and we asked if non-guests could get massages as well. They could so we booked for half an hour later, they called in two massage therapists and we had a drink in the beach bar while waiting. We booked 1h massage with aloe and it costs us 1000 php each (186 kr). Like how is that even possible?! They even make a profit with that. Crazy!

They really took care of us and my face. Unfortunately, I had a big band-aid on my left hand so they didn’t massage aloe into it. But my face already looked so much healthier after that hour.

We then signed up for dives tomorrow and headed to dinner at Villa Potenciana. The tacco pizza was incredible!