...of bags and eels...

Of course I would post my lofty goals of blogging regularly...right before we go on vacation. Good timing.

However, enough on that, no time to feel truly guilty because I'm in AUSTRALIA!! At long last, we are actually here!! The trip was good, loooong...but then, we expected that. What we DIDN'T expect was that we would arrive and our luggage would not. And that the next day, it still wouldn't arrive. And the following day?...still nothing. Are we on vacation wearing and rewearing the same clothes? Yes, yes we are. Thank goodness we both knew we were leaving one temperature and entering a vastly different - warmer - temperature so both of us had stuck one change of summer clothes into our carry-ons! And, as a complete last minute after thought, I'd even thrown a handful of underwear into my bag!

Apparently the last two flights from Hawaii have left ALL their luggage behind because of cyclones or something insignificant like that so at this moment there are hundreds of bags sitting at the airport in mass confusion and lots and lots of smelly vacationers! It could in fact be a lot worse but it is pretty sad that Justin came dying to surf and his surf board is somewhere between Hawaii and Australia in who knows who's hands and in who knows what kind of condition. It did not ease his mind when, as we were standing in line with many others to report missing bags, we saw amidst the mess of hundreds of lost bags, someone else's surf board under stacks of luggage, its tip at a sickening angle to the body of the board. Ouch! One good thing is that my schoolbooks are indeed lost in the luggage and so, oopsies, I can't study right now! Too bad.

Anyway, aside from that we are absolutely delighted with the opportunity to be here, HERE, right NOW!! We both bought some beach attire, Justin borrowed a surf board, our friends are here, the beach is here....really, what else do we need!?

After shopping for the necessary items yesterday we spent several hours on a beautiful beach. Brad and Justin surfed their hearts out and Steph and I....well....we rescued a fish. Sort of. Meaning it was sort of a fish and sort of not. And we sort of rescued it and sort of...not.

So we were laying on the beach and suddenly realized there was a huge ugly fish, at least a meter long, splashing and flopping in an extremely shallow stream. After observing it and talking to it (swim fish, no no...go to your right...you're going the wrong way!) for about 30 minutes we realized it was dying right in front of us because the stream was redirecting and leaving it almost entirely exposed to the hot sun and only its head was under water. In fact, there was already a very dead fish only feet away, testament to what this one's end would be!

Being very tender hearted we couldn't bear to think of it just dying right in front of us, ugly or not, so we found 2 sticks and for the next 20-30 minutes worked like crazy women. Steph dug out little trenches trying to redirect the stream and I started shoving the slimy thing toward the ocean, both of us shrieking every time it moved or I accidentally touched it. So there we are, in our bikinis, screaming, shoving, digging, and hollering like PE coaches, "Swim fish, swim!! Come on, you can DO IT!"

Finally, in a moment of intoxicating triumph, we got it close enough that an incoming wave submerged it completely and we watched our flagging fish come to life and swim out into the welcoming ocean! We were ecstatic! We had heroically, faced our fear of a huge slimy fish and singlehandedly saved its life!!

When Brad and Justin came in for a break we regaled them with every exciting detail, pointing out the dead fish and how we saved its brother! Both of them immediately said, "Um...yeah thats an eel!" Siiiiiiiick! We saved an EEL! It had crossed our mind because it was really quite ugly and long but....siiiick.

And thats not all. They then informed us that it was in fact, a FRESH water eel.......

Well, we tried. And we feel we are better people for it!