A whale of a time

   It's been almost 2 weeks now since my hernia operation, it wasn't your usual case of the intenstine protruding. My hernia was made up of a fatty layer that hangs over you intenstines called “omentum”, which was pushing out of a 50mm tear in my stomach muscles where my sensitive belly button is. The omentum protruding out was the size from the wrist to the finger tips while holding a softball! The operation went well and am now recovering.

   My hernia was the main reason why I haven't pushed myself to chase big waves to photograph of late as it was getting increasingly bigger every week. I'm sooo stoked that i am not far away from getting back into it now. So all we all need now is a couple of big storms to romp through the great Southern ocean into the sth Pacific sending massive swells to grace the coastlines of Tasmania, Fiji Tahiti and all inbetween.And hopefully will time well with me days off when I get back to work, that seems to be the hardest part hahaha.

   Meanwhile I have been chilln out in Surfer's Paradise, being stuck in me room for the first few days after the operation was driving me nuts. As soon as I could get out and walk around ok i went straight down to the beach where it was pumping. Unable to pick my camera up at this stage was quite frustrating but, at least I had me toes in the sand and ocean washing around my legs while i stood motionless watching the surfers glide across mother nature. It felt great, bloody awesome to be honest.

   At that stage I wanted to be on a boat, so a week or so later when I felt I was up to it I decided to go on a whale watching trip. It was an amazing day with us spotting a couple of whales, one coming right up to the boat and then tripping us all out as it dove under us to pop up on the other side. The whale turning gracefully over slightly to get a better look at us probably thinking what a bunch of nutters. They are so stunningly beautiful, moving through the water with ease occasionly coming up for a well earned breath of fresh air. It was the best day I have had in Australia yet. A huge thanks to the lovely friendly crew on the boat, I highly recommend the "Sea world whale watch" boat.

   So here's a few shots of recovery time for me. And here's to hopefully a future with no more hernias and days of big surf to shoot and share with everyone my curious perspective on the world as we know it.

Sláinte

My recovery accommodation

The lovely seaworld whale watch crew

Just luv this shot, so graceful

Looks like they're all staring at a painting on a wall...

I want one of these and I'd say I wouldn't be the only one

One of those moments in life for a lucky lady

That's pretty high and dam impressive, so much trust in this shot