Some views of my journal do not allow back-dating of posts. This entry should be dated 2005-10-11.

Days 5—7; Magnetic Island, Townsville, Home
Spent the day hiking to The Forts, a (now disused) military base and artillery emplacements errected on Magnetic Island during WWII. The guns on the base could cover a significant number of bays and waterways, protecting the approach to Townsville. It's said that the guns were never fired in anger, but were fired once in 'mild surprise' when a United States warship arrived unannounced.

All up this was about a 12km walk through undulating and sometimes uneven terrain. Most of what remains of the forts are just concrete slabs and other foundations, however the more permanent structures including the ammunition stores, gun emplacements, and command towers have survived, although much of their 'fake rock' camoflague has not.

The walk, combined with Magnetic Island's hot tropical weather, had both Jacinta and myself feel very glad to arrive back at our hostel, at which point we had dinner and quickly fell asleep.

The next day had us travel back to Townsville. This provided a much needed chance to establish a proper network connection. The second half of the day was spent in the aquarium, which while as not as large as its sisters in Melbourne and Perth, was nonetheless very educational and gave us a chance to identify and learn about many of the critters we had seen and photographed on the reef.

In the evening we undid much of the good work from the previous day of hard exercises and healthy food, and instead had a number of pints and tasty-but-unhealthy pub food.

Today (Tuesday) is the day of our flights back to Melbourne, with our shuttle bus arriving in about 80 minutes time. Jacinta is exploring the nearby Maritime Museum, while I'm taking a break to catch up on my mail, journal, and plans. Our travel arrangements, once they start, are hectic. We're flying from Townsville to Brisbane to Melbourne, where my very kind sister-in-law and her husband are picking us up and whisking us away to a friend's surprise 30th birthday party.

Tomorrow it's back to work, catching up on a week's worth of things that will have landed on my desk.

Some views of my journal do not allow back-dating of posts. This entry should be dated 2005-10-07.

Day 3 — 4 Yongala; Magnetic Island
Woke at around 5:45am in order to make a 6:00am dive on the Yongala wreck. The Yongala is a ship that was tragically lost in bad weather near Townsville in 1911, with no survivors. Sitting in 28 metres of water, the wreck now forms an artificial reef, with an incredible number of species living on and around the debris.

The dive was indeed something special. Unlike many wrecks, the Yongala is incredibly well-preserved, and is easily identified as a very large ship. Masts, cargo holds, portholes, dining rooms, and other areas are easily visible. But one of the biggest attractions are the wildlife. On our first dive I was investigated by a bull-nose ray. We saw giant maori wrasse that were easily 150cm long. Friendly (and incredibly venomous) olive sea snakes lived about the wreck, and a large shovel-nosed ray passed us by with curiosity. There were more huge pelagic fish in and around the wreck than I could possibly look at.

After our first dive we had a modest surface interval before our second. Due to the depth and time of our first expedition, our second was limited primarily to the upper parts of the wreck. I would have loved a longer surface interval and a deeper dive, but unfortunately time constraints (and the very modest speed of the boat) did not allow this.

Having said that, the boat (the Sea-ester) overall was good, and the crew (from Pro-Dive Townsville) and food were excellent. I think that us vegetarians ate better than the rest of the passengers, and our two crew members with degrees in Marine Biology seemed to never tire of me asking them to help identify fish and other wildlife we had photographed.

Upon returning to land in the afternoon we caught a ferry across to Magnetic Island. Magnetic is a large island, with many permanent residents, shops, supermarkets, and other facilities one would expect in a moderately sized town. That's good, because it means we don't have to put up with the typical island-monolopy prices.

Unfortunately, it appears that Magnetic Island still thinks that "Internet" means "Web", which means that it's impossible to plug in a laptop anywhere; not unless you happen to carry around cable-cutters, a crimping tool, a long extension cord, and a small switch on your journies. That's a bit of a bummer when you need to send off some files to international clients, or want to catch up on e-mail securely.

We've spent some time in the island's bays snorkling, and found it disappointing. Perhaps we're going at the wrong times, but the visibility has been awful, at only 1—2 metres at most. I'm sure it gets better than that, as I keep hearing lots of good stories about how good the snorkling can be.

This afternoon we're going to be heading out on some walks through the rainforest, and enjoying some of the island's quite striking geography. Our plans for tomorrow include catching the ferry back to Townsville in the evening for a nice meal, more acceptable network connections, and an easier trip back to the airport for our flights.

Some views of my journal do not allow back-dating of posts. This entry should be dated 2005-10-06.

Queensland Holiday, days 1—2 — sunburnt and stung
I'm two days into my holiday and dive trip. Our first dive was short, and included some time in getting the proper amount of weight for my new wetsuit. By the second dive we were feeling more confident, and by the second day things were just superb.

We've been collecting some great photographs, although we forgot to take the camera on one of the best dives so far, a massive 25m high bommie with crystal clear visibility.

So far I've discovered two important things, albeit a little too late. One is sunblock, I now have two very red shoulders where my wetsuit doesn't cover me. The other is the use of stinger suits. During today's night dive I got stung part-way through, giving me some rather-painful looking marks to show off to the rest of the passengrs and crew when I returned. As much as I hate wearing a stinger suit, the idea of being covered in nasty red sores is even less appealing.

Tomorrow we're diving the Yongala, an almost 100-year old wreck in an exposed position. It's often touted as "Australia's Best Dive", and all the people I've spoken who have dived it before seem to agree with that statement. Apparently the wreck is open to rocky seas and strong currents, and with our planned dive taking us down to at most 28 metres and then working upwards, I expect my air consumption will be pretty high. Unfortunately we only have 12-litre tanks on board, filled to only 200 bar. I've been spoilt with bigger tanks and 250 bar fills.

Food on the boat has been fantastic, and I think us vegetarians are eating better than the rest of the passengers and crew. Jacinta and I have a lovely double-cabin. The only downsides, besides from the small tanks, have been the bathrooms: there are only two of them, and they contain both a toilet and shower. One can spend quite some time waiting for someone to finish a long shower, even if one's personal needs are quite short.

Our equipment has been holding up very nicely, although there have been a couple of hiccups. I accidently lost my surface marker buoy on one dive, but another diver thankfully recovered and returned it. Jacinta also had a personal marker light flood on a night dive. It's probably our cheapest and least important piece of equipment, but salt-water and batteries sure make an awful mess! We still may be able to repair the light, but it will probably require quite a bit of scrubbing to do so.

Our Yongala dive is at 6am tomorrow, and I've been told one of the highly coveted showers is free, so I'll write more later when I can.

Some views of my journal do not allow back-dating of posts. This entry should be dated 2005-10-04.

Queensland Holiday, day 0 — travel
Today is my travelling day on holidays with Jacinta up to Townsville, Magnetic Island, the great barrier reef. Holidays are always an interesting affair for me. As I seem to be chronically short of time (or endlessly able to use it), I'm always concerned that holidays will take me away from more pressing tasks, the most significant of which is the completion of our Web Development course for later this year.

I now more fully appreciate why there is a 'holiday season' in December. If everyone else is taking a break, then businesses can more safely close their doors for a few days, or manage without key staff on-hand. Going on holidays during October always has me thinking about how we will effectively manage any important business events, such as course bookings, while we are away.

Despite all the worry beforehand, I'm certainly looking forward to the next few days. Diving on the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef was fantastic, and I have every reason to believe that the northern end will be just as good, or better. What I don't know about is the boat. I've been on some absolutely fantastic boats with great facilities, people, and food (Big Cat Reality immediately springs to mind), but I've also been on other boats that were less good.

The other possible hitch is our wetsuits. I have a 7mm two-piece suit, designed to keep me warm and comfortable in Melbourne, with chilly lovely 10-20'C waters. Our trip will have much warmer surface temperatures, and 20-30'C waters. I'm fortunate in having the two-piece, I can choose to wear only half the suit if it's too warm. Jacinta has a heavy single-piece suit with very serious seals. It won't surprise me if Jacinta decides to go diving in her lycra-suit instead if the water is warm enough.

Currently we're delayed in Brisbane airport, with morning fog delaying our arrival, as well as our connecting flight. Luckily I've borrowed a good book from Ian on the history of the calendar, which besides from providing entertaining reading is also answering me a number of nagging questions I've had for some time, such as how did we end up the days of the week (they're named after celestial bodies), why do they have strange names in English (some were renamed after Norse gods; Thursday is Thor's Day), and how did they end up in the current order (a rather fascinating system of naming hours after celestial bodies, with days taking their names after the first hour). The book also notes that 2012 is the end of the current Maya Great Cycle, when it is said that all things will cease to exist, and the world will be made anew.

Batteries and Dive Computers
I'm going on a diving trip soon, so last weekend was spent testing and packing gear. While testing the dive computers we discovered that my computer had lost some battery charge; not enough to cause any immediate problems, but I don't really want to find myself with a 'low battery' warning out at sea. It's not surprising that the battery has lost some charge, I've done a lot of diving with this computer, and the battery is holding up very well compared to the expected lifespans listed in the manual. Since the idea of changing batteries part-way through the trip was not appealing, part of my pre-dive work was to change the battery on land.

The recommended way to change the battery on this model of dive computer is to purchase a 'battery kit'. This includes a new CR2032 lithium battery (valued at $4.00), a new O-ring (valued at $0.05) and a new plastic battery cover (valued between $15.95 and $45.95, depending where you buy it from). The battery kit is a good idea, it ensures that you're not reusing worn, damaged, or dirty parts.

Unfortunately, finding a battery kit proved to be difficult, and I wanted my battery changed before I went away. Given this is the very first battery change, and that I have silicon grease and lint-free cloths at hand, I decided to just purchase the replacement battery, which are cheap and easy to find. What was interesting is some of the discussions I had with equipment technicians regarding dive computer design.

It appears that most dive computers have their actual electronics embedded in what's informally known as "potting mix". This is a waterproof gel which means that even if water does enter the computer case then it's unlikely to cause immediate failure. In fact, the most likely problem to be caused by water leakage is corrosion of the battery contacts. While that's a bad thing, it's a lot less dangerous or expensive than total computer failure. There's even a possibility that the computer can partially self-diagnose; the corrosion reduces voltage available from the battery and results in a low-battery warning.

The net result is that I need feel much better and safer with my newly replaced computer battery, instead of being concerned about damaging seals during the replacement and having to use a bottom-timer and tables during my holidays.