It’s been a while since my last entry hasn’t it?  I guess you guys have some crazy questions eh?  Well I hope this little FAQ will help you out.

Question 1: WHY THE HELL HAVN’T I HEARD FROM CARL?
Answer 1: Ok, so were going to start out with the angry but simple ones.  Fine by me.  The answer is pretty basic and it includes a lot of excuses like, “I have no free time” (which is half-true) and “I would rather hang out with my friends” (A blatant contradiction of excuse 1), but the real answer just comes down to…  Well, I haven’t gotten around to it.  Since New Caledonia I have been to both Vanuatu and the Solomon’s and damn…  Talk about crappy internet.  In Vanuatu the internet situation was so drastic that I believe I only got 1 e-mail sent in about thirty minutes…  And in the Solomon Islands… let’s just say google.com took a few minutes to load up.  So there you have it…  No internet = no communication.  Oh and yea, I have no free time. 

Question 2: What do pirates do when their bored and at sea?
Answer 2: Er, um… Well, I can tell you the stuff that we can’t do… Nothing?  Ok, so that’s a dirty lie and you know it.  As for the things that we do, it generally revolves around making fun of each other, tormenting each other, pranking each other and basically all around perturbing each other.  When we aren’t pulling each other’s strings we partake in such interesting activities like climbing to the Royal Yard, playing cards (poker) and watching movies late at night.  Other interesting activities in our recent sails have included: ship’or’treating, Ureparapara surprise stop, secret friends and most importantly, Miss. Concordia.  All of these activities warranted a late night and a good time.  I shall just expand on one of the events due to its significance in Class Afloat history…

Alex is not known for striking good looks and large breasts… partially because he is a boy.  Indeed, my cousin, Mr. Pollock did partake in this event along with a few other suckers.  The contestants hailed from various made up places and possessed quite interesting names such as Jason’s, “Eyeanna B. Topless”.  Their bios were also quite humorous and included a sad tale involving possums (or possibly some other small furry nocturnal creature…  I don’t quite remember as I was laughing too hard).  But nothing could stand up to the hilarity that ensued after the bathing suit contest began.  Indeed, some of these striving transsexuals went a little too far in the skimpy factor, but nothing popped out and all was well.  After that section of the show the contestants reappeared wearing new garments and with interesting performances in their heads.  We saw everything from Alex’s makeup lessons to a lesson on horse riding by a cowboy wrapped in cellophane…  I must say, it was a glorious night…

Ok, time to move on…  NEXT QUESTION!

Question 3: What have you been up to in Australia??  (Are there any Kangaroos?)
Answer 3: Ok well first of all let me get something strait, there are no Kangaroos in northern Australia and yes, I was as choked as you are.  Instead there is a nice selection of flesh-eating beasts and plenty of dangerous reptiles.  Of course, I haven’t even mentioned that its box-jellyfish season.  So no swimming, no hiking, no strolling, no dancing, no playing, and absolutely no singing dammit!  Ok, I got a little carried away but in reality, it IS dangerous to do all those things… especially when your in a country where everything wants to kill you.  Even the sea cows.  (see: the death of Steve Erwin)  Anyways, enough of the downers I suppose, in reality the port-program we have had here has easily topped all the others in every shape and form.  Expand shall I?  Fine.

It was 6:00 AM on December 2, 2006 when the students piled into three buses with backpacks filled up with food, snacks, weapons (remember the amount of deadly creatures…you can never be too careful…), and sleeping bags expecting a long, hot, dirty, and extremely boring ride ahead of them.  How wrong were they?  Very.  We started off normal enough, a few introductions here, a few bus-buddies there… Then we left.  My bus shot forward, ahead of the other two and soon we left them far behind.  Already this trip was getting exciting.  As we left the city the outback began to form in front of us… complete with massive rocks and red sand.  A beautiful day and the sun hadn’t even risen…  That was about the time that I drifted into sleep… as I had only had about 4 hours of slumber the night before…

As far as I can tell we were going about 120 Kilometers (that’s Metric for fast, you Imperial Bastards … ) when our driver, Falcon, decided to smash on the brakes and turn our car around in a mad 180… in the middle of the highway.  Everyone was yelling in great concern as we anxiously looked around for dead animals, people or aliens… but no, there was nothing in sight…  Why would he have woken us from our siesta?

As soon as our van rolled to a stop on the side of the road Falcon jumped out the door, and ran deep into the forest (under-bush?  Dry-forest?  What exactly do you call the Australian forest anyways?).  About 35 seconds later he appeared around a tree carrying a gigantic frilled lizard.  Indeed, Falcon, or as we like to call him, “All that is man”, spotted this amazing creature while trying to break the speed of sound.  This was proving to be quite the adventure already.

After a bit of touchy-feely and info-shinfo with Falcons catch, he let him go (did you know that frilled lizards can run on their hind legs?  Well, I didn’t either, till the little bugger buggered off on his little two hineys…  Pretty freaking cool if you ask me.) and we got back on our bus, still far ahead of the other two turtles.  And we were on our way.  Now, as I am a lazy bastard the rest of this amazing trip shall be summarized so that later you can ask me about the details which I shall then provide until I get too tired and snap.  

Our next stop was a little gas-station/food spot where we dropped off one of the guides (he was more of a cook than a guide and so he was the designated chief for all of us, poor fellow), ate some ice-cream and continued on our journey…  I love ice-cream.  Next, we hit some beautiful waterfalls.  Now I can’t really remember which one was first, but as we did hit 3 waterfalls in the course of 2 days I can summarize all of them right now: HOLY SHIT!  Indeed, stuff this amazing deserves coarse language.  Sorry about your children, they will get over it.  Basically they involved loads of water cascading over small spouts of rock into large basins of crystal clear water… ice water.  And damn, it was the happiest cold swim I have ever had… considering the heat and all.  Anyways, apart from the trips to the falls we also camped out at a permanent camp (meaning no setting up of tents and lots of running water (win-win situation kiddies)) and did 2 hikes to some sweet rocks which were painted on by some perverted cave-kiddies (we now call them gangsters) thousands of years ago.  Apparently what I just said was wrong and I should be shot… But hey, when you paint hundreds of stick figures and the only thing you know how to paint in 3D are their “Down-Unders”, my personal opinion is that you have some serious problems.  Or they were just all painted by a bunch of boys going through puberty.  More stuff happened, more hiking, Falcon spotted a meter and half long Childs python (Is it named that because it eats children or because children like to play with it?) and a dead crocodile.  Oh and right before we got back into Darwin we stopped at this sweet Aboriginal art shop where there were a few snakes and birds which we got to hold and play with.  All in all it was a sweet time.

Anyways, I hope this will pacify your questions until I return…  Please do think of interesting things to ask as I would love to elaborate on all of this if I just had the time.  But it is 1:20AM and I am tired.  Maybe I shall add more onto this tomorrow before I post it, but its doubtful.  Thanks for reading, and to all a goodnight. (Christmas is coming soon ain’t it?  Remember, I really like IPod’s, nice sunglasses, jackets, hoodies, work shirts, nice card-sets, things to do when your bored, money, portable hard-drives, DVD’s, games, PSP’s, and more…  Remember no pressure to buy me this stuff, cause if you don’t Ill just steal it off ya!  I am a pirate after all.  Arrrrrrrrr)