Jason Wells

The Irish pub didn’t work for us, so we headed upstairs to a dance club called Tricks. The club wasn’t too bad but craig was trying way too hard to get laid. I found a girl to dance with for a while. Her name was Grace, and the irony kills me still — too drunk to stumble she was, and her sweaty face was slack from the fantastic amount of liquor she’d consumed. To be honest I was pretty hammered myself. The stream of rum and vodka was endless. But even drunk girls and alcohol couldn’t make the club come alive for me. I got bored and left after 2:30. Craig followed me out but he wanted to keep going, looking for love. He went back to Charlie’s, and I was wrecked, so I went back to the cabin. Before I hit the sack I drank about a liter of water straight fron the faucet. I was dehydrated like space ice cream. I knew full well it wouldn’t be enough. It wasn’t. Too little too late.

So yesterday morning I awoke with a considerable hangover. But I had much to do, and I couldn’t take the luxury of helplessly lying in bed all day. With a groan I woke up just in time to extend my stay; you need to make up your mind before 9:30 in the morning. It was cruelly early, and the sun was way too bright. I needed food and more importantly, water, and I needed to do laundry bad. The sailing trip had left me with little to wear, I was down to sandals and shorts that weren’t too dirty. Then I had agreed to meet up with Craig to teach him email etc. at 11:00, and I also wanted to reconnect with Michael. So I found him and asked if he wanted to hang out with Craig and me. I felt so miserable that after we set that up, I went back to the cabin to sleep off more of the hangover. But it was not restful. These two cute American girls, Miranda and Betsy, were just waking up and taking showers and changing and so on. With these two indiscreet, half-naked girls running around the dorm I was too distracted to sleep. I’m not complaining, believe me, I totally approve of naked chicks in principle, but I was in no mood to appreciate it. So I left, bought some bottled water, and brooded under a palm tree. Grrr.

At eleven I headed to Craig’s dorm. I found Michael on the way, so we both barged in. Craig was incredibly hung over; He had fallen asleep in his hat, sunglasses and shoes. He was in terrible shape. Michael and I had a good laugh getting his sorry ass out of bed. His comical misery lightened my own black mood. He wanted to eat breakfast at KFC, so there we went. Afterwards we found an Internet terminal and I demonstrated Google and set him up with a Hotmail account. Michael and I sent him emails so that he could get the hang of it. He was incredibly alert considering his hangover. I mean, he had to crawl on all fours to get to the upstairs Internet room. I kid you not. I wasn’t sure the lessons were taking, but what the hell. There wasn’t much to lose.

Craig and Michael.

We headed to the beach next. It was low tide, so it looked uglier than usual, but I’m glad we went over because we found Julian there. This is a British guy studying to be a doctor. He’s intelligent and likes to say “shocking” when I would say “bad” or “disgusting.” The four of us (Craig, Michael, Julian, and me) got bored with the beach, so Craig suggested we could hop into his truck and go for a drive to explore.

“Hurts like buggery!”

After dinner last night Dodgy read us pirate stories. This was a lot of fun because he has a very gravelly voice and he even kind of looks like a pirate. I wish I had a camcorder to capture it. The sky was cloudy so no stargazing for once. Though I am amazed at how nice the weather has been for the entire cruise.

This morning I wasn’t feeling 100%. The infected oyster cut on my foot was bugging me, and my burnt red skin was warm and overly sensitive. I was also sore from all the swimming I did yesterday. The sunlight was bothering me to the point that I sought out shady areas, or covered my arms and legs with my towel as the sun hit. I did some early morning diving off the bow into the ocean to cool down and clear the fuzz out of my head. It helped a little.

This is Dodgy’s last day as a crewman for the Solway Lass. The rest of the crew played practical jokes on him mercilessly. Right after he woke up they poured seawater and flour on his head — this I got on film. It was classic. They also poured mayonnaise into his boots but the real kicker was this: as he piloted the dingy to help maneuver the Solway Lass into the docks, the bosun Pete leaned over the bow and poured a nearly full bucket of bilge on him. He howled in rage — the bilge is like shit and vomit mixed. Extremely vile. But Dodgy did manage to get Pete back — as the bosun tied the ship to the dock, Dodgy scooped up a bucketful of the filth in his dingy and flung it back, nailing him precisely in the face. After he got back on board Dodgy warily glanced around, always keeping a wall behind his back and brandishing a can of incredibly foul-smelling fish oil. He looked like a cobra backed into a corner. It was rich. I like Dodgy. He plays it very tough, a cackling party animal, but he’s bright. (The backpacking crowd is a lot of fun, but they aren’t always the sharpest knives in the drawer.) He really likes pirate stories and sea literature, and he can critically analyze the stories. He wants to write stories like that himself. I suggested that he check out Rime of the Ancient Mariner, not only for the Coleridge but also the fantastic Gustav Dore engravings that go with it. He’d like to memorize the entire poem and recite it to passengers. I hope he does it.

Dodgy gets nailed.

The rest of the last day on board was an eclectic set of experiences. My camera magically began to work again. People here like to roll their own cigarettes. There was a rope-swing competition that I helped to judge. I gave extra points to anyone who face planted into the water. People also got extra points for swinging nude, or for landing painfully. No one took the first option, though from reading the ship’s passenger log I see that other cruises were less prudish. One memorable bit: When Michael swung out and resurfaced, he shouted “It hurts like buggery!” I took some last pictures of people. There was a group of French engineers who work on a solar car racing team. I got a picture of one of them as he let got of the rope-swing to land in the water. A German passenger, it was discovered, had taken a large coral formation from one of the beaches. This is illegal; the islands are part of a park system, and removing anything from the beaches results in a A$10,000 fine for the person and an A$30,000 fine for the boat crew. The bosun took the chunk of coral back. I think the German just didn’t know the rule. He wasn’t the criminal type.

The crew asked us all to join them for a party later that evening at Morocco’s, a bar on the strip at Airlie Beach. We got back to dry land at 4:00 so I had over three hours to kill. After I checked back into Magnum’s I took a long, long shower. It felt great after all that sun and salt and sand and rationed water. They discourage you from taking lengthy showers aboard, not to mention you shower standing next to a toilet in a stall, which doesn’t give you much space. After I moved my stuff into the hostel cabin I checked email. I made the mistake of helping one person who asked, and so everyone in there began to ask for help. I need to teach my tongue to say “I don’t know.” I reloaded from an ATM, bought a new pair of Teva’s (the old ones were shot), and generally, if you get the idea I was running around a lot, you’re getting the right picture. I ran into Lauren the waitress at Magnum’s again. Even now, the next day in the morning, as I sit at one of the benches, she’s setting up the restaurant for today.

There’s weren’t many people at Morocco’s that night. The Solway Lass party was small, none of the crew had yet arrived. We had a few drinks and waited patiently. Eventually it got to be 9:00 PM so we took our table and ordered dinner. The captain showed up just as I got a jug of Toohey’s New. Good timing. Morocco’s was playing music videos on several huge wall-mounted monitors. Leonie wanted to dance and so did I, so we got up on stage, but the music was too quiet and the music was too boring to sustain interest. So we opted to find a new bar or club. Airlie Beach is full of them. In fact almost every backpacker’s hostel out here has a huge bar out front. Undoubtedly convenient. As were were leaving Morocco’s we ran into Pete and Dodgy! Massively late, of course. They still wanted to go to Morocco’s but Pete recommended we go to a bar called Charlie’s for dancing. The plan was that they would catch up with us shortly thereafter. Then later we’d get to a pure dance club. (This is the way it has to work: First bars then clubs. Because you can really only pick up girls at bars; then you bring them to the clubs. The dance club is too loud to talk.) Most of the Lass party made it to Charlie’s. We lost Karen and Carey. They are so inseparable, and look so similar, you begin to think of them as a single individual with two bodies. It was rumored they were lesbian, but the reason they never made it to Charlie’s is that a guy snagged them on the way and talked them into going somewhere else, so I doubt this. While I was at Morocco’s Karen taught me how to roll a cigarette. “Not bad for a first try” was her polite if uncharitable verdict on the outcome.

Charlie’s was much better than Morocco’s. The band was good and we had the critical mass to get the dance floor moving. We danced for hours. I was hyper and euphoric. Julian, the quiet, educated British guy with poise, turned into an animal on the dance floor! He was drunk enough that he danced to the rhythm of the massive ceiling fans. But eventuallysome people got tired, or too drunk, and chose to leave kind of suddenly. With so many people leaving, mob psychology dictated that we all ought to leave. But just as we headed out the door, again we see Pete and Dodgy! Like patron saints of hedonism, they kept us going. We went back into Charlie’s. Mostly stood around and smoked hand-rolled cigarettes, courtesy of Craig. After a bit of this Craig and I decided to head for the Irish pub down the street. On the way, he confides in me that when he first met me, he thought I was a stereotypical rich American asshole. But as he got to know me, he thought I was a good guy after all. In fact, as it turns out, he considered me a “credit to my nation.” He was speaking from his ass but I knew he meant well. He said his initial hostility towards me was really jealousy of my Web career, and he asked me to teach him the Internet. I had no idea what this meant. Did he want to learn to program? This seemed far-fetched. But through drunken question I discerned what he really wanted was email to communicate, plus he wanted a way to find information. Once I realized this I offered to teach him the wonders of Hotmail and Google the next morning. He was really excited and eager, but I cynically attributed that to his being plastered more than anything else. So many ambitious plans made while drinking never come to pass, and I was pretty sure Craig isn’t the Internet geek type. But future events would surprise me.

I’d like to give you all a picture of Craig. He’s an interesting guy, and a lot of fun to party with. So here’s an email from Craig, exactly as I received it:

hi there my whitsunday sailing friend i,ve tried the net the other day to get your address well if you get this ithink i,m working this bitch of a machine out got an email from micheal but where i found your address his wasn,t there fuck my typing is slow come on silicone valley with the speak at it and it works computer programe what do you computer blokes do all day play games and suck piss anyhow thinking about necken back larger i,m about a 6 pack worth of thirsty just typiny thirsty oh no thats a7 pack shit i could dehydrate at this rate nah slip yahself an uppercut theres no chance of that you no me . punctuation big breath in i,m on the home strechspell check that would ya i,m in cairns get a map and look it up well just standin still up here makes ya thirsty so gotta go i,ve gotta work in the morning yeh got a job now parties gotta end some time nah bullshit i mustn,t be thinking straight probably the piss wearing off so back to the pub emailgo that didn.t work fuckers broken

And a brief message from Craig to America:

tell america i said to slip ya selves a quick uppercut

Last night Solway Lass departed from Airlie Beach. The crew is a blast, a very fun group. One of the crewmen, Mr. Dodgy, is a riot. His nickname is perfect: it’s British and Australian slang for ‘doubtful’ or ‘suspicious,’ and he really fits the description to a tee.

It is really wild out here. On the dark seas, with no light pollution, the sky is stunning, breathtaking. Thousands of stars, crystal clear. Not only could I see the Milky Way, but I could see the roils of turbulence within. We saw a few shooting stars that night as well. I could not tear my gaze away from the splendor. While we all gawked at the sky for a few hours, hors d’oeuvres were served. I got to meet some of the other passengers: Leonie, from Holland, Michael from Perth, Craig from somewhere in rural NSW, and Jay and Ha Gen (don’t trust my spelling), two girls from South Korea.

The Solway Lass.

It is really wild out here. On the dark seas, with no light pollution, the sky is stunning, breathtaking. Thousands of stars, crystal clear. Not only could I see the Milky Way, but I could see the roils of turbulence within. We saw a few shooting stars that night as well. I could not tear my gaze away from the splendor. While we all gawked at the sky for a few hours, hors d’oeuvres were served. I got to meet some of the other passengers: Leonie, from Holland, Michael from Perth, Craig from somewhere in rural NSW, and Jay and Ha Gen (don’t trust my spelling), two girls from South Korea.

Ha Gen, Leonie, Craig, Julian, Amy, and Michael.

Later on I got into an interesting conversation with the crew regarding film and art. One of the crewmen was hoping to make a movie and we got to talking about his script idea. They anchored the boat for the night, and around eleven or so they turned off the electrical generators. Most everyone went to bed. Electricity, as well as fresh water, is scarcer on this vessel than you’d imagine. The toilets are designed to conserve water, and in order to conserve space, the showers are in the same stalls as the toilets. An arrangement I’d not seen before.

This morning I awoke at 7 AM to the sound of the generators igniting. I climbed up on deck and warmed myself in the sun, eating breakfast while admiring the proximate Whitsundays. This ship has a line fastened to a yardarm that you can swing on like Tarzan, scream your lungs out, then let go and drop 5 meters into the warm blue ocean like a cannonball! It’s a lot of fun. I did it three times and managed to tear up my hands. It’s also easy to dive right off the bow into the water. It’s warm and beautiful here, it’s so hard to be in a bad mood when you’re in paradise. The ship eventually lifted its anchor and proceeded to a nearby island. Whoops, no time to write now…

“If you don’t live on the edge, you’re taking up too much space.”

I’m now more of a crispy red color, thanks to my nap. I did one hour on the front, one hour one the back, plus a little swimming. I don’t burn easily but out here, that’s all it takes, even with sunscreen. But it doesn’t really hurt, so it can’t be that bad. And it sure is relaxing to lay there in the breeze with the ocean crashing on the beach in perpetual rhythm. After a while you even get used to all the topless women wandering around too. Mostly. While there I met a guy who was receiving a haircut from a girl, right on the beach. She offered to give me a cut too, for A$10, and I almost accepted just for the novelty of it. The guy liked my blue Oregon Coast Aquarium shirt, with the yin/yang live fish/fish skeleton on the front, and wanted to buy it from me for A$20. I refused.

On the way to the beach I encountered a very large reptile of some kind. I also encountered two Kiwis playing chess on the porch of my hostel cabin. I swear they told me it was a ‘manatee,’ which it definitely isn’t. It was over a meter long and tame like a city squirrel. When I first saw it I was apprehensive; the only lizard I’d seen anywhere near that size was a crocodile. But this fella was more scared of me than vice versa; When I approached for a closer look, he shambled away. Guess it was rummaging through trash.

After I ate dinner I scoped out the bars. The one with the best crowd was beginning to fill up so I got a schooner of VB and found a table. I chatted with these two girls from London briefly, but they were just about to leave when I got there (preparing for a sailing trip like the one I’d take the next day). I didn’t see anyone else who looked interesting, so I took off. I bought some postcards to send home and stir up some serious envy.

So now I’m back at the hostel. This one is different from the other two I’ve been to. Here, each dorm is a discrete cabin. The cabins are very simple, almost primitive, but not in a bad way. There’s no need for sturdy construction, insulation, and so on when the weather’s basically perfect all the time. You almost don’t even need shelter here. It’s clean and simple and it suits me fine. And at A$12 a night, an unquestionable bargain for lodging 100 meters from a beach.

I got to Airlie Beach earlier this morning. This bus ride was even longer than the last one, a full 18 hours, but it was more tolerable because I was in the first row, though I did have to sit next to a large Austrian. He wasn’t Schwartzeneggar, but he was big. I froze on this bus, while I melted on the last one. Guess the a/c works a lot better up front; I had no blanket or even a towel, but I learned that putting my backpack on my lap warmed me up a little. They showed “Titanic” on this trip. And now that I’ve seen it, every human on earth has now seen it. I was the only one left. I’m not in a great mood right now. I’m exhausted and lonely, and I’m beginning to think coming out here alone was a mistake. Plus I’ve had a major setback, but I’ll get to that in a second.

Airlie Beach is a real improvement over Brisbane. The beach is nice, not Bondi but close enough. In one respect it’s far superior to Bondi: it’s close proximity to the Whitsunday Islands and, of course, the Great Barrier Reef. The town itself (pop. 4000) is touristy, but it’s tolerable because it really has a buzz. At the beach I took some pictures of the scenery. What I hadn’t yet realized is that Airlie Beach is topless. I laughed when I realized what a pervert I must have looked like, wandering around the beach with a camera!

When I registered at the hostel called Magnum’s, an annoyingly chipper desk clerk named Rose sold me a diving package deal. 5 days on a ship plus 2 free nights at the hostel, with PADI training and certification as well as dozens of dives for about A$500. It sounded great…

Except for one thing. “You don’t have asthma, do you?”

It’s something about the cold, dry tank air combined with physical exertion, I’m told. Even mild asthmatics can die or suffer brain damage while diving. They can’t breathe, they panic, they come up too fast, and their lungs explode, or they get the bends, or go into convulsions, or get air embolisms, something along these lines. And I have severe asthma. I’d die quickly. I can’t go.

This bad news hit me like a sledgehammer. It was a bitter, bitter disappointment. If I had known this, I might not have come to Australia at all! After I left the doctor’s office I had to lean against a wall for a bit to regain my composure.

So it’s time for a change of plans. I’m still going sailing to the Whitsundays, and I will see the barrier reef, but it will be snorkeling. I cut the trip down to three days since there’s no need for PADI certification. This also has the virtue of being considerably cheaper. It will still be fun I’m sure, but what a nasty surprise. I still wonder: is there any way I could’ve deduced this medical requirement before I left? Hell, I didn’t even know there was a medical exam before you are allowed to dive! Seems obvious in retrospect. Anyway, the trip isn’t until tomorrow evening. So a nap on the sunny beach sounds really good right about now.