Jaws of Life

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My two favorite, fun phrases I’ve learned along the way that I’ve enjoyed.
1. “Good on Ya” -A nice way of saying thank you or they like what you’ve done
2. “ What are you after” - bartenders say this often instead of, “what do you want.”

Sydney has a rare thing about it that should be used more often in the United States, it’s called, wait for it…..free public transportation. It’s the most amazing thing, all day, a giant green tax payer funded bus, picks you up and drops you off for free. There’s no catch, at least I don’t think there’s one. Of course if they did this in the states, they’d probably collect your DNA or make you fill out a form so they can sell your info to telemarketing companies so you can get text messages about the free iphone or walmart gift card you’ve won.

Although everything in Sydney is expensive as all hell, they do have some really sweat weekend markets where shit isn’t a rip off. Tara and I strolled around them for a while and the food and booze is really inexpensive. Tara even let me off the husband leash a while and strolled the markets solo while I people watched and drank Guinness. I still can’t get over how damn nice everyone is here. It’s politeness almost to an unbelievable level.


With the weather being almost perfect we decided the best thing to do was head in doors and go the Animal Park and Aquarium. On our way to the aquarium we encountered the strangest thing, Aborigine didgeridoo techno music, it’s didgeridoo played over techno music. I could totally see Buddy dancing to it in his room naked with a kangaroo skin blanket draped over him. November is young adults with cancer month and they sell do rags and bandannas, so Tara and I bought a pair and I rocked the Australian flag on my head all day.

We finally arrived at the Animal Park and before we even got passed the front door, some girl hands me a Stick Bug and it starts crawling all around me. I knew I was in for a treat that day. It seems like everything we saw at the Animal Park did something cool for us. The Duck Bill Platypus was busy hunting, swimming and eating little fishies. We were able to see all 22 of the 25 deadliest snakes in the world, all who call Australia home, instead of them hiding under rocks or whatever. I wish we hadn’t seen any of the spiders, but we did. I have decided that I will probably never ever camp or do a walk about, this place is a spider, scorpion, animal and reptile deathtrap. The Kangaroos were napping hard, like a bunch of Sunday morning Chico kids, even the 3rd largest recorded Crocodile in the world moved around, which the staff said happens only when he feeds. The Crocodile named, Rex, was there because every other park he was in he would mate with the women crocs, and then kill and eat them, my kind of animal. We also got to pet the Koalas they had there. Well we got to pet one Koala, because the other Koala’s will bite or tear your hands to shreds if you touch them. I’ve seen the claws and teeth on them and they are vicious little sons of bitches. The Koala was pretty chill and lets us pet him, we didn’t get Chlamydia, which we had heard through the grapevine could happen, or at least, we’re showing no sings of Chlamydia yet. The aquarium was cool, but not even remotely as cool as the Wild Animal Park. We thought they had a Great White Shark there and they didn’t, this was also the time I was informed that we weren’t shark diving in a cage, but rather free diving in a tank with sharks. What the fuck man? I was not a fucking happy camper about this news.

We headed over to this touristy place after our long spells indoors and got us some Schnitzel and Jugs of Beer, which are my two favorite forms of sustenance. Being on the second floor I thought it would be fun to drop French fries onto the walking paths of tourists below and watch the flocks of sea birds attack them, the fries would be devoured so quickly that the people would never have a clue as to why they were being attacked. I would drop two or three fries in front of an unsuspected family and the birds would just maraud them. It worked out pretty cool until one of the staff caught me. And I wonder why I get punched!

Shark Death Countdown Clock 22:13:37

That night was a special treat, we decided to go see Shakespeare’s 12th Night at the Sydney Opera house. When I first started courting Tara, I would buy her Shakespeare books printed in the 1800’s from ebay and mail them to her. We thought it would be not only a romantic thing to do on our honeymoon, but also pretty cool to say we went in and saw a play there instead of just taking a bunch of photos from the outside of it. The only draw back to this plan was that I had consumed a bunch of crap food and jugs of beer earlier, so I had mild gas and was already kind of buzzed. From the moment we stepped in our hotel elevator, the fart machine kicked into high gear. We headed to a restaurant down at the pier the Opera house stood on and got cheese and wine like all good Shakespeare snobs should have before a play. The play was actually really good, from the acting to the production I was quite impressed. Another funny note, Tara and I were married on the 23rd and it seems like everywhere we go now, the number pops up. On the plane ride here I sat in seat 23 and at the Opera house Tara sat it seat 23, to name 2 of like 67 instances. So I’m sitting in the bathroom at the Sydney Opera house taking a poop and it hits me, I’m taking a crap in the Sydney Opera House, then I got outside and it hits me again, I’m watching Shakespeare and sipping red wine in the Sydney Opera house. It was all just kind of ridiculous. We really couldn’t believe everything that had been happening lately so we headed home and hit up a few bars and called it an excellent day once again.

Shark Death Countdown Clock 9:03:59

It’s Halloween in Sydney and Tara is a little bummed because she doesn’t get to dress up and celebrate her favorite holiday. We decided to spend the morning watching Simpsons Halloween episodes in bed because that’s always a sure fire cure for any blues. We also broke out the underwater camera and took it into the bathtub and shower for a few wet runs. It works. (sorry, Chrissy, if you’re reading) A funny thing I noticed around Sydney is the amount of redheads here. Seriously it’s like a 3:3:3 ratio of brunettes:blondes:redheads. This place in the ginger capital of the world. The Irish got a bum wrap about the redhead stereotype.

Shark Death Countdown Clock 6:30:00

Seeing as I am going to die today, today is swimming with shark’s day. Tara agreed to giant pretzels and sausage for breakfast. I figure my last meal on earth should be my favorite meal and there was no sushi readily available, or affordable. We headed over to Manly beach on the ferry to check out Tara’s dad’s favorite beach while he was here. We rented bikes and went cruising all over town. I love riding bikes everywhere, especially in fun spots. It gets you places just as quick as busses or cabs, but you don’t miss out on the scenery or experience along the way. We cruised down the beach strip and headed up to the cliffs and did some Lost style hiking. Tara and I are a good team because Tara will say things like, “I wish we could go up to that dangerous looking cliff,” and I will already be half way up the hill encouraging her participation before she finishes the sentence. The cliffs that surround Australia remind me of Ireland, not just in the way they look, but the clean air and sobering beauty and thoughts they bring to your inner self when your upon them. I wouldn’t mind being stranded on a spider free deserted island for a while, I actually think It would be fun. To bad inner peace won’t save me from my shark death. We also got to swim in these rock barrier pools the create along the ocean. They allow in ocean water, but keep sharks, rays and jellyfish out. The whole time I was swimming in it, I kept looking over my shoulder, below my feet, etc, looking for sharks, in the shark free pool.

Shark Death Countdown Clock 1:21:59

So we headed over to Oceanworld after a hell of a long bike cruise, hike and ocean swim. We met up with Adrien and Tony our two shark dive instructors and met all the guys we would be swimming with. There wasn’t a lot of people going with us which made me nervous for two reasons, one was this more dangerous than I thought and we were the only blokes dumb enough to fucking do it? Two, there weren’t a lot of people to choose from when the sharks decided to eat us, so my odds of dying/extremely painful gnawing of flesh now stood at 25% of happening. The instructors all seemed pretty calm and collective. We watched a video on how to scuba and how to act and behave in the tank. Tara noticed a dvd copy of, “Chicken Run,” and they told us that the video is for people who puss out on the dive. Man I wanted to watch that fucking video so bad.

Shark Death Countdown Clock 00:01:49

We suited up and entered the tank after some underwater push ups and breathing exercises. First we saw some turtles and fish and sting rays, but no sharks yet. We walked along the floor of the tank and headed over to the shark feeding area so we could see them better. They were at least double the size they looked from outside the tank and yes, they have like 18 rows of razor sharp teeth. Once in the shark feeding area, they have you stand up on the glass tube and remain calm and hangout, then the sharks come floating around you, through you, occasionally bumping into your head. All I could do was constantly look every which direction believing somehow that I could prevent being maimed if I maintained a vigilant state of alert. At certain points the sharks swim right up to your face with those cold black eyes and rows of teeth, and when they get about two feet away, they change course. It was like looking into the eyes of your worst fears. There was no joy when they wouldn’t strike, just a feeling like we were being toyed with before death, like a cat play with a mouse. At one point in time one of the sharks opened it’s mouth and extended it’s jaw to reveal a back set of teeth. Later we were told he was just showing off for the female sharks, but it looked like he was trying to say to us, “I’m going to fucking eat you now, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” Just following the impressive display of dental superiority a shark swam by a gave me a bump to the back of my noggin. After checking my head for blood and my pants for crap we headed out of the tank alive and unharmed physically. It was quite a rush and by no means cured my fear of sharks but it was a gigantic leap towards not being such a wuss.

The adrenaline rush lasted for quite some time after we got out of the tank and exchanged emails with our fellow divers. It’s strange how bonds are formed over such short periods of time, but we all seemed like a strange dysfunctional family after that. Because we were so nice and fun, Adrien gave us some shark teeth he had been collecting from the tank. The sharks are endangered but seeing as they came from a natural source we were allowed to have them and take them out of the country. We left Oceanworld as new people really and we headed back to the ferry. Before we even got there the sun began to set and I finally found a sunset worthy of replacing my Lisbon sunset as the most beautiful I had ever seen. We polished one hell of a day by drinking Sangria and eating dinner to a marvelous sunset side table at Hugos. I kept waiting for Dolphins to jump out of the water and perform Queen songs, that’s how ridiculously awesome the moment felt.

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