Byron Bay, New South Wales

Together we decided to take a trip to Byron Bay, a small funky town 90 minutes away. I love this place, neat, quite, hippie-ish with a beautiful beach and a great for a small surf and for sure – diving!

The main reason I came here was to dive with grey nurse sharks or also called Sand tiger shark. This shark looks so scary , the teeth are kind of growing out his mouth !
Unfortunately he is listed as endangered under Queensland's Nature Conversation. I cant wait to see him. For sure we were running late and the diving shop was just waiting for Zibi ( polish guy ) and me. Chucked in the truck we drove to the beach were we had to pull the boat in the water and jumped through big waves with a loud honk – because of the surfers – in direction Julian Rock. A small rock which is a small way of the beach and in winter its crowded with Grey nurses. Because it is spring there are moving away to cooler waters so we are praying to see some. Stupid me, i didn’t take my underwater housing from Sydney with me so I told zibi to take some good shots of the sharks..



You wont believe what happened.. After 30 minutes of a good dive we saw tons of Porcupine fish, 2 wobbegong sharks and a few other things as suddenly a huge swarm of small yellow fish swam towards me, as I realised that they are surrounding a huge grey nurse shark!!
He swam right under me just 1 meter away! Jippppiiiii!!





I looked at Zibi and saw that he was doing something with his camera so I was sure that he saw the shark next to him.. everybody went out of air except the dive master and me , so we sent them up and had a great 60 minute dive alone where I saw another 2 m long ray!
On the boat I was talking exciting about the dive and the shark as I realised that Zibi didn’t see the shark – he was filming the small fishes around the shark!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I couldn’t believe this! How can you miss a nearly 3 m shark right next to you???
Well in the video he admit “ You were damn right, there is a bloody shark in there!”
How funny.
Can you at least see him?!

The rest of the 2 days we spent in the crystal blue water, surfing the small waves and bathing in the sun..

South Port, Surfers Paradise

Early morning – we always get kicked out of bed very early – we made our way through beautiful channels and some islands to direction surfers Paradise. Anchor out, went shopping and on the way back we saw about 15 dolphins next to the houseboat. So beautiful!! they were hunting a pod of small fish all the way into the bay.
Because of the over crowed and ugliness of Surfers Paradise we only went snorkelling, surfing, body boarding or jumped of the boat for hours..

South Stradbroke Island, Queensland

The next morning we made our way with the dinky to the Island to discover beautiful sand dunes , long empty sand landscapes and the ocean.Fresh footprints placed by wallaby´s on the sand dunes leaded us over to the ocean. The heat was boiling us to fried eggs – no pan needed.

Back on the boat they told me about a crayfish who looks like a shrimp but is called "jabby". They hide in the sand banks and you can suck them out with kind of a self build suction. I had to find them! And tadaaaa, after a view pumps we found them but didn’t used them for fishing like everybody else..

One of my favorite crab was around, well one of them and a millionen others. While searching for them you here a weird noise from far away, sounded like tons of small marbels crashing against each other and running over the low tide.. them you can see them. Millllllllllllllllllions of "Soldier Crabs", eating in the sand and while approaching they run away from us and then burry themselves in the sand in circles within seconds. The others run to thousands over each other , against each other and with each other. They have such a nice blue colour and some of them are even bigger and are darkish yellow. There little eyes loom out like an alien. I love them! They are so funny! So nice to be happy about so small things. ;)
















Once again I am being a magnet. For what this time??? Oh well I had a lot of crazy shit I attracted. One fear – and I think my only – are thunderstorms. I love them when they are far away and when I am in a safe place.
So now, imagine you are in the middle of the nowhere on a houseboat WITHOUT a lihgtning rod … Jip, welcome in my life.
I was watching a great thunderstorm over the gold coast for nearly 2 hours from the boat and did amazing shots.
Suddenly , the storm turned around and made the way to our direction.. and on one shot I saw whats coming up to us! Look at this!!



A huge cloud formation was coming straight to us.. first it was quite and then the wind peeked up so quick and hard that the boat was moving crazy and it felt like the anchor was getting ripped out of the mud.. They tried to calm me down - It took me 3 Schnapps’ and 2 beers , and a poker game. It was scary and so beautiful at the same time, being in such a big thunderstorm with amazing lightning’s all around you for hours but I really don’t wanna know what would happen IF… whatever, once again I survived :)

South Stradbroke Island, "Jumpin Pin"

Further on we arrived on Jumpin Pin, a small sandbank in front of the tip of south Stradbroke Island. Anchored in a little lagoon, surrounded by sand dunes and behind them – the ocean. We had a nice sunset walk along the beach while and the tide was taking out the water quickly.

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Cooking delicious meals , playing check, poker or skat, listening to Axels guitar sounds while enjoying a home brewed beer or schnaps is our evening routine.. not to bad at all! :)