Are They Waving or Drowning?

Sorry about the lack of posts, but there hasn't really been much for me to talk about poker-wise of late. I played a few sessions on Boyles a couple of weeks ago, putting on 5k euro to play 5-10 PLO and some HU tourneys. One small winning session was quickly followed by three small losing sessions and I busted the lot.



In my own mind I didn't tilt at all, and I feel I played pretty much as well as I'm capable of, and while I did seem to run badly, I would probably be deluding myself if I just put it down to bad luck.



Last year was my first losing year online, although it wasn't really that bad considering the stakes that I'd been playing, and obviously overall it was a great year with my live results. Even so, I was determined to have a good winning year this year online, and I thought it would just be a matter of concentrating more and moving down the levels a bit.



Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be that simple and I'm thinking of taking a total break from online cash games until I get home, then maybe moving down a bit lower to 2-4 or something just to try and put a winning month together and get a bit of confidence back. If that doesn't work out then I'll probably have to admit defeat and just stick to live poker and some online tournaments.



Paradise



We're still travelling and we've just arrived in Byron Bay, which is a kind of surfer town on the east coast of Australia. I've been really enjoying it over here especially the last few weeks. From Brisbane, we travelled up to a town called Noosa, from where we visited Australia Zoo – made famous by the late Steve Irwin. I bought a few of his DVDs while I was there and they're absolutely great entertainment. The guy was a legend, even if he was a total lunatic.



We stayed in Noosa for a week and then myself and Karen formed a splinter group and headed off on our own to Lady Elliot Barrier Reef Eco Island for a few days, while Dave and Annabel opted to wait for us in Noosa.



The island was very small and could only be reached by light aircraft (which landed on a grass runway the length of three football pitches). There wasn't really a whole lot to do, the accommodation and the food was pretty basic, there was no air conditioning and the heat was really hard to stick through the day. Also, the whole place smelled pretty terrible because of the tens of thousands of sea birds that lived there.



However, despite all this, the five days we spent there were five of the best days of my life. Despite the basic conditions, the staff and the other guests were all amazingly nice and friendly and there was a nice relaxed hippyish atmosphere around the place.



Diving/snorkelling is really the only reason anyone goes there, and it is easy to see why – it was easily better than anywhere I've been to before, and I've been to a few different spots diving/snorkelling on the barrier reef as well as Fiji and the Caribbean.



I saw manta rays, a moray eel, turtles, some huge fish and seven different species of shark, all within 50 meters of the shore. I realise that might not sound overly exciting to all of you, but if you're into that sort of thing (which I am) then it was pretty close to paradise.



Hell



Unfortunately it wasn't exactly paradise for Karen. The first day we arrived we went snorkelling and after 30 minutes or so she decided to go back to shore while I stayed on in the water for a while.



The whole beach was rimmed by a wall of razor-sharp coral and there were only a couple of points where you could enter/exit the water safely at low tide without getting badly cut, so being the good boyfriend that I am, I kept an eye on her to make sure that she'd made it back ok.



After a few minutes I could see her standing up at roughly the same place we'd came in and realised she was alright. Only when I came back to shore did I find out what had really happened. Karen had tried to get out at the wrong point, just beside where the safe exit channel was, and had got washed on top of the coral by a wave.



When she tried to get back into the deep water a new wave would come and knock her over again. She briefly tried to walk across the coral but soon realised this was pretty impossible.



At that point I reared my head and started shouting something about a turtle at her, and she shouted at me to come and help her. This went on for a while with me shouting 'TURTLE!' pointing below the water, and her shouting 'I'M STUCK!', and waving her hands about.



Unfortunately from where I was, 'I'm stuck!' sounded like 'what?', and I just thought she couldn't hear what I was saying, so I waved my hand as if to say it doesn't matter, and off I went.



You can imagine how this looked to the group of guys on the beach who were watching all this unfold – this girl getting cut to ribbons on the coral, while her boyfriend left her to fend for herself because he was out swimming with a turtle.



Luckily one of the guys came to her aid and helped her out of the water, but by that time she was already quite badly scraped and went on to develop coral poisoning and was sick for a couple of days.



Obviously I feel a bit bad that this happened, and I can't help thinking that maybe I was a little bit to blame. In my defense though, I saw her standing up and I think it was reasonable for me to assume that she'd made it out of the water ok at that point?



Maybe I am the worst boyfriend in the world though… the guy who helped her out of the water certainly seemed to think that, judging by the way he was looking at me like I was something he'd just wiped off the sole of his shoe, whenever I walked past them later at dinner.



Just to rub salt in her wounds, she also got shat on by a bird on two separate occasions despite the fact that she spent most of the time in bed recovering from her coral poisoning – she really is bang out of form. In fairness, there are so many birds on the island, that practically every person who visits gets shat on at least once… obviously it didn't happen to me though.