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Alright Chaps and Chapettes,
I know I said that I would write another postcard before the New Year, but very little had happened in December that was worthy of your attention.
Since my last update I have started doing my DM course with an outfit called Global Dive and I am really loving it. They are all such a cool bunch of people and know how to have fun. At this moment I have done 6 out of 8 exams, and got 100% in all of them, done 2 out of four stamina tests, swimming stamina that is! One was towing a diver for 100m, and the other was threading water for 15 minutes with my hands out of the water for the last two. I still have to do an 800m and 400m swim. Thankfully I scored top marks in the other two stamina tests so all I have to do is complete the swims.
There is a load of other things to do but I have done all but a few of them. I am hoping to complete it in a couple of weeks. I have also bought an entire dive kit which cost me NZ$5,400! But, I have been saving for this so it is not so bad. That is why I have very little other news, I have not really crossed the door. Since the start of November I have been diving every weekend, either teaching in the pool or in open water. So you can imagine I am totally knackered and am looking forward to finishing it so I can have a few weekends off.
December was a very boring month as work was very quite. Everyone takes 2 or 3 weeks off work over the xmas period and so nobody wants to join until they get back. One of the bosses at work (nobody really knows what she is responsible for, but she is the sister of the owner) gave me a “performance review” for my poor sales in December saying that so much more is expected from me. When I asked her if she checked last years numbers to compare she said that she didn’t, but was sure there was more sales last year. However, upon checking last year’s sales figures I have sold more this year and there were two sales people last year! Jan was also a record month for the club. I achieved my entire months targets in one week. As long as I can hang around for a couple more months I will get loads of commission on the rest of my sales. Obviously, no sign of a performance review this month! Working for a family business has many annoyances, apart from the lazy daughter working for me and not being allowed to discipline her, they never listen to anything you have to say and are too restricting on the sales staff. But you don’t want to hear about that now do you? I have to keep reminding myself that I am only here for a short period and that it is not a career job.
Christmas was a quite affair, as I spent it chillin’ at home. I went for a 10km run (thereabouts) down to the beach first thing in the morning and than came back and cooked myself an Irish breakfast. I have not had a fry up in well over a year and enjoyed it but am happy to leave it another year before I have another one – I have become a little too healthy me thinks. Unfortunately, Santa doesn’t know that I am here; either that or I have been naughty – well more naughty than normal! But I did get one present from one of my friends. She got me a pair of boxer shorts that I can wear when I am out on the pull, I will put a photo of them on the site and will let you ladies decide if they would scare you away or not. Maybe the idea is to make sure the girl(s) rips them off as soon as she sees them! Will have to test out this theory.
On St. Stephens Day (boxing day to non-Irish) I met up with Becs for lunch. For those of you that don’t know who Becs is, she is one of the people I travelled around South America with. She is currently living in Sydney but came home for the holidays. It was great to catch up with her and reminisce about our travels, it is surprising how much you forget you did. She is a very cool person and when I hit Sydney I am sure I will catch up with her again. Other than a few people I have not really heard from that many people I travelled with. The first few months afterwards you get loads of emails and than as time goes on this slows down. I am just as guilty of not sending emails as anyone is – resolution #1; keep in better contact with people. After traveling half the world I have met some amazing people, and some very forgettable people (if you are reading this you most be one of the amazing ones) and I must keep up with the emails or I will have nobody to put me up when I get to a new place!!
For New Years a few of us decided to go up to the Bay of Islands and do some outdoor activities. I was able to borrow Lu’s car for the long weekend and so Shaun and myself traveled up on the Thursday night to a place called Whangaruru. There is a hostel there that Global Dive use as they have there own boats and take people out diving. The drive up took a little longer than we expected as the roads are so bendy. Are only blessing was that driving at night meant that we could see the head lights of the oncoming traffic and be able to slow down. We also got a little bit lost on the way.
We spent one night there and than I went diving the next day with some of the other people staying in the hostel. As Shaun doesn’t dive he was our boatman. When we got out to the site I realised that I was the only one not in a dry suit or a semi dry, nor did I have a hood or gloves. The water was freezing (17C), after a little while my body got used to it and it wasn’t so bad. I saw some cool fish and a few really big stingrays. All the others were down catching crayfish but I am not into the catching side, I prefer just to observe the fish. The second dive was not as good as the first as the visibility was terrible and the water seemed even colder, although it wasn’t, I just didn’t have enough protection on.
After diving we drove up to Russell for something to eat and than got the ferry over to Pihia. We checked into our hostel and than went for a walk around the town. Pihia is a small coastal town that gets loads of visitors during the summer and with New Years as well the place was packed. They are a few very good restaurants however the prices were all quite high. Most of the bars cater to the backpacker crowd and were not really where I wanted to drink. As you can imagine there are loads of people that seemed to have just discovered alcohol, but there are a couple of really cool laid back bars that we went to.
The next day we met up with some friends and decided to spend the day chillin out and enjoying the occasional beverage or two. Myself and Shaun were going to go on a boat tour of the bay – there are 144 islands – but the highlight is a place called the Hole in the Rock and that is where we went diving the previous day so we decided to save some money and not bother. Also the tours cram loads of people onto the boats and so you struggle to get a decent view of anything. Helen and Greg were going to rent a small boat and do their own thing but the weather was not the best so they decided to not to do anything either.
After spending most of the day drinking we all went back to the hostel and got ready to go out for dinner. Helen brought a cool game called “Bop It!” We had a few rounds of this and than made it a drinking game. Than Helen persuaded me to let her straighten my hair – you can see the pics in the latest album. From there we all went out and had a not so pleasant meal and than a few more beverages before going home.
For New Years Eve, Shaun and myself booked onto an overnight cruise called “The Rock”. It left the harbour at 5pm and we got back the next day about 4pm. Although it was less than 24hrs it felt like I had been away for days. They put on loads of things to do and everything was so well organised it was great. We got to shot a air rifle at a plastic bottle floating in the water as we cruised out to the site, I was dreadful at it. After that we all went fishing off the back of the boat and whatever we caught we eat for dinner. Dinner was a huge buffet of all manner of things. After dinner we all went night kayaking that was great. Kayaking in the dark was great as you could see the bioluminescence every time you put your paddle in the water. The challenge of the night was swimming around the boat at midnight. Firstly, the water was absolutely freezing. Very few of us did it. At first I thought it was something they get the tourists to do for a laugh but it is meant to be a maritime tradition, and it was mostly staff that went in. As cold as it was I am glad I did it. The next day was spent lazing on a beach and kayaking around some of the islands. By the end of the day I was quite tired and was ready for bed. So when we all got back to land I had a few socialables and than headed for home. Our last activity was an 8 hour kayaking adventure. It was not until we were out on the water that I realised that 8 hours of kayaking was not going to be easy! It was great fun though. The first four hours are spent up river kayaking to a waterfall and than we went out to sea. It was cool as it was starting to get choppy. There were no white tips, but in a kayak even small waves are fun. I did a bit of surfing but it was very tiring to build up the speeds to catch the waves.
After the kayaking we headed back to Auckland and got stuck in the mother of all traffic jams. Seen as neither of us knew an alternative route we had to stick with it. That was until I got really sick of the traffic and took another road. By pure luck it was the right road and we cut out all the traffic and saw some great views of the western side of the North Island.
I promise to do another postcard in Feb, well I’ll try anyway. Until next Time, Em
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