Thursday 21st
January 2016
Surfers Paradise beach is just stunning. It goes on for miles, is board and clean and
glorious. The water is warm and inviting
but…the short sharp waves are just waiting to trip and dump you. There are shark lines all along the beach in
the deeper water. Not quite sure whether
they act as a deterrent or whether they kill any sharks unwise enough to come
in close… Sharks have such a dreadful reputation and yet…they really don’t
kill, or even bite, many people at all.
I love swimming with reef sharks; they are so delicate, and so
timid. (Not so sure I would feel so
confident with a great white, or even a bronze whaler, so I don’t really have
any cred when I say I am not scared of sharks.
Crocodiles on the other hand…aaaggghhh!!!)
Last week in Bicheno some of Nicky’s friends were out
in their dinghy, towing their nine year old daughter, Gemma, behind them on a
biscuit (big floaty thing.) They idly
looked across the water towards Diamond Island and saw…a fin. And a tail, far apart. A BIG shark!
Gemma followed their line of sight and panicked. GET ME OUT!! she shrieked, quite
understandably. They stayed calm and got
her into the boat with minimum fuss. The
shark was still mooching about in the bay, so they went closer. And closer – right next to it, until they
could look into its eyes. It was very
calm and unperturbed, and a fair bit longer than the 4 metre boat…What was
amazing, they said, was that once they were all safely out of reach of JAWS,
they could admire and appreciate this beautiful big creature placidly hanging
out with them. Until it wasn’t – with a
flick of its tail it was gone. SPEED!!
Today was Seaworld day – our third theme park in three
days… It was very hot and – amazingly – the boys flagged and asked to go home to
the cool apartment at 1.30!
Before we left we bought water cooled fans for all of Leo’s
sister, plus one for Pete. Big
spenders! (They were on special, two for
$12.)
Hamish suggested having lunch early, to avoid the crowd,
and this was an inspired suggestion. We
were able to sit on a shady veranda overlooking the dolphin rehabilitation pools
with fish and chips.
The boys were delighted to discover that the fish and
chips came WITHOUT salad and WITH a complementary fizzy icy drink.
And I was more than happy to be given a cooling glass
of XXX Gold…Pete missed out on this treat,and on the stunt jetski riders, because he left on a 6am plane. I was able to drive him to the airport and get back into my bed before the boys knew anything about it!
