Snorkelling Tropfest.

We all went snorkelling at Shelly Beach last Saturday. The last time I went snorkelling was when I was out at the Barrier Reef. I was a little apprehensive to go out snorkelling in the sea this time as I would be well out of my depth and Shelly Beach doesn't have any lifeguards.

When we got to Manly there weren't any swimmers in the sea as there were more blue bottle jellyfish being washed onto the beach. Shelly Beach is just a kilometre across from Manly, but because it's sheltered from the sea there aren't any blue bottle jellyfish around there.

This is a view of the area where we went snorkelling, Shelly Beach being just to the right of the shot and Manly directly to the left. As it turned out swimming out to sea was quite easy with a snorkel on, as I didn't have to worry about breathing when swimming. Allen did mention afterwards that I did look a little funny while out in the sea but then again I was well out of my depth and quite reliant on the snorkel to breath!

I saw plenty of fish around, obviously not as many or quite as colourful as on the reef but there were still quite a few fish of varying sizes to see. Some smaller fish swimming in shoals were very close to the surface and would pass you before changing direction very quickly. I was quite pleased in the end that I had gone out snorkelling, as it was something else that I wouldn’t normally do.

After snorkelling we went to Manly for some good food and also some beers. Unfortunately we were mostly dressed in shorts and thongs so we weren't allowed into any of the bars in Manly. They appear to have a policy of smart casual dress for Saturday nights.

Not being able to get into any bars we caught the ferry back to the CBD and managed to get served in the Ship Inn which is more of a tourist bar being right on Circular Quay. Surprisingly we stayed up till about 3.30 in the bar drinking all night.

When we were at the bar there was an obvious wedding couple that were out on the town. They looked a little out of place in the bar as she was still in her wedding dress, but they did both have thongs on as well being very Australian.

There was one incident in the bar when a few bouncers had to force a man out of the place. He was quite obviously drunk and I saw one of the bouncers try to trip the guy over when outside of the bar. Then some woman then started on the bouncer and it felt like just any other bar in the UK on a Saturday night!

A bit later on three policemen turned up and started to take notes from the bouncers and the people that were kicked out. Allen obviously bound by his civic duty to serve went over to the police to give his statement to what had happened! They didn't come over and ask us anything but Allen really wanted to tell them what he saw happen. They eventually took his name and details and obviously took him very seriously. We haven't heard anything else about the incident since, maybe they had better things to do like deal with real crime.

On Sunday evening the Tropfest short film festival was on in the Domain Park in Sydney. The film festival is apparently one of the biggest in Australia if not the world. The Park is only about a fifteen minute walk from my apartment so I just had to go to see what was going on.

I met up with Ian and a few of his friends at the park. Everyone at the park was having a good time there each with their own picnic setup. It was really good to be able to sit in the middle of so many people watching films all night and snacking on food.

The weather wasn't fantastic as it was a little overcast but it was still quite warm and humid. As the sun started to set the fruit bats started to fly from the near by botanical gardens. It was quite cool to see the low flying bats overhead as it got darker. I'm sure the bats were wondering what was going on in their back yard, which would normally be so quiet.

Here you can see the edge of the Sydney skyline at night from the park. There are always so many outdoor events going on in Sydney almost every weekend. I guess the better climate really helps but I can't imagine so many things going on in Bristol as often.

The sixteen films that they showed were of varying quality. Some were obviously quite serious and had a deeper meaning while others were very funny. I think the outdoor atmosphere really didn't help the more serious films while the funnier films obviously went down very well.

One particular film was about the race riots last year. Two blokes met up on a beach one Australian and the other middle eastern. It turns out that they were meeting up for some rioting against each other. However they were obviously too early or at the wrong beach.

They started talking to each other initially cautiously and eventually were very friendly to each other. Their conversations were very funny, along the lines of so how many people does it take to constitute a riot, is two enough, or maybe a dozen. Where do you get your knuckle dusters from, what playstaion games do you play, etc. I guess the underlying message was that even though they were intent on causing each other harm they weren't that different and under different circumstances they could be friends.

You can do a search for Tropfest and take a look at the films online. Between the flags is the film that I described above. The Von and Being Boston were also very good.