Feb 28, 2006 - Elan Update Part 6: Mooloolaba
by Scott and Wendy Bannerot

It seems that every exciting voyage plan starts the same, with lots of relatively routine work. There's simply no way of getting around it. We did have one last fling before rolling our sleeves up, however. I returned to Wendy and Ryan in late December from the job with Nomad Sportfishing in the Coral Sea a week before Christmas 2005. Shortly after New Year's Day Ryan and I headed back to the mothership Odyssey 2 for the inaugural trip of their charter dive season. We spent 10 days exploring the Bunker Group, a series of reefs and low coral islands on the southernmost end of the Great Barrier Reef. This is south of box jelly and crocodile land, and the reefs are literally teaming with life. Intensive scuba diving affords an entirely different perspective than guiding charter fishing trips. Capt. Tim Baker used the ultra-modern electronics on Odyssey 2 to put us on a great deal of interesting underwater topography, loaded with sea life, from Lady Musgrave Island to Fitzroy Reef and all stops in between.

Elan in full cruising mode, here anchored at the remote Tongan outpost of Niuatoputapu en route to Australia. Our present goal is to return to this mode for the 2006 season in the Coral Sea.

Daily Ryan and I would don mask and snorkel and free dive around the boat and along adjacent shallow fringes of reef. One night while anchored at Lady Musgrave, a large manta ray swept back and forth through the menagerie of sea life swarming in the glow from our underwater hull lights. Ryan grabbed his mask, stretched out prone on the dive platform, and stuck his head in the water for a better view, exclaiming excitedly and incomprehensibly through his snorkel. Very often when we'd make a move we would accumulate dolphins around the boat, mostly Pacific bottlenose, but no one seemed to tire of standing at the bow while they effortlessly cruised in the pressure wave beneath us.

Wendy in full cruising mode, here anchored at another remote outpost in Tonga, Tafahi, en route to Australia. Another present goal is to return her to this mode for the 2006 season in the Coral Sea.

Before we knew it we were loading our bags back into the car at Hervey Bay and heading home to Mom in Mooloolaba, the sunny beach town we now call home. She'd had several medical appointments during the first part of January and so once more had to miss the trip. Ryan went back to a routine of school, tae kwon do, BMX bike racing, chess club, soccer, and surfing, and I started in earnest on the process of sorting all the stuff out from the shipping container still stacked in file boxes all over the house. Unlike other voyage-staging areas, though, Mooloolaba has this deliciously exotic subtropical feel to it - like you are already "there", not slugging it out somewhere cold and gray with that big fat carrot of a tropical cruise dangling in front of your nose. This can also take the urgency out of getting everything ready. For example, you wake up early with the best of intentions and start working. You need something from the shed, and walk out in back of the house. The palm fronds are standing rock-still, and you can hear perfect surf breaking on the beach to the east. The sun is up over the horizon, and it's a weekday. What would you do? Of course...drop everything, grab your surf board, and hit the waves. Ideally, you return in an hour, refreshed and exercised, and throw yourself back into the fray. Then again if it's really good you might not get back for three or four hours, and when you do get back you're a little whipped. If ever there was a "good" hazard to the process of boat preparation, this is it.

Ryan, on the other hand, always seems ready to roll. Here he is exploring the pristine shallows of Lizard Island on the northern Great Barrier Reef during a break from work aboard Nomad Sportfishing's mothership Odyssey 2. (photo by Alain Bouvier)

With a little luck and more than a little perseverance we'll get it all together on both the maritime and medical fronts and shove off in late April. Wendy's interthecal pain pump continues to, shall we say, not quite live up to expectations in terms of effective pain relief. The good thing about it is once installed, the options are many, and it's a matter of keeping at it. By comparison, the boat work is no problem. I have a work interlude back on Odyssey 2 for a chartered bluewater spearfishing trip, another two-week gig in the Cook Islands helping to open a new bonefish/sportfishing camp, and a stack of paperwork. Wendy and Ryan will go with me to the Cook Islands, and we'll sink or swim together on pulling off the 2006 Coral Sea charter schedule. As long as we are all together, everything else will take care of itself.

I'm always ready to roll too, especially when it's with my best friends Ryan and Wendy. This is Ryan and me on break from work aboard Odyssey 2 at Lizard Island. (photo by Alain Bouvier)