My Own Shark Week

I think it's fair to say that is one of the coolest things I've done not just while being in Australia, but ever. I didn't put together a bucket list before moving of things I had to do, but the one thing I remember investigating months before moving was to dive with the great whites. Outside of South Africa, one of the best and most consistent places to see them is off the Neptune Islands in South Australia. I was a little worried leading up to it, not because of fear but because of the expectations I put on the experience. It's kind of like going into a meal expecting greatness but having it not live up to the expectations. This experience far exceeded my expectations.

I had to be at the dock at 6:30am to leave for the three hour trip to the Neptune Islands. It was a gorgeous morning with just a few clouds and since it's winter we were up and moving before the sun came up.



With three hours to kill before we dropped anchor, I was able to thoroughly examine the piece of welded steel that would be the only thing separating me from the beasts.


Aside from the bite marks on the boeys, the one thing I noticed was the side of the cage was dented. After talking with James, he did verify that it was done by a shark. While I wanted a bit more excitement than I got in the cage, I don't know how I would have reacted had that happened with me inside.



When we finally got there, I had the plan of not being first in the cage. In the event that there were no sharks, I didn't want to waste my time waiting for them. But as (non)luck would have it, they needed a solo person which was me. As I was getting on my wetsuit I heard everyone talking about the shark. So I sped up and got right in. Apparently it was only an adolescent, about 2 meters. I missed that one by the time I got comfortable breathing with the regulator.

When I finally adjusted to breathing deeply and slowly, I was expecting to see sharks everywhere but all I saw were fish. Loads of them, even inside the cage. At times I'd freak out a bit when I'd step on one not knowing what moving creature I just stepped on. Visibility underwater seemed pretty good, but all of a sudden a monster 4 meter great white appeared.


My adrenaline had to be flowing because I was no longer cold in the 16 degree water. The beast went for the chum, circled the cage and left. A great intro, but I wanted more. After probably 10 more painstaking slow minutes constantly turning in circles not wanting to miss anything, another one appeared. This one got pretty close to the cage.


I remember starting right up at the front of the cage but when I looked at the pictures after, they were all from the back which meant I must have unconsciously backed up as it got closer. As I was backing up I turned around to make sure I wasn't going to run into anyone only to see another white coming at the cage from the other side. I had my own double shark moment. Everywhere I looked were massive sharks. Growing up swimming in pools and Lake Michigan, I never had a fear of the water. After moving to Boston and swimming at the Rockport beach I've always thought that there could be sharks anywhere. Big ones, hungry ones. Swimming in the harbor and "surfing" at Manly, the thought is always in the back of my mind. Now I'm staring at the big black eye of a Great White no more than 4 feet away. And they are just as amazing, if not more than I could have expected.



It was about this time where it dawned on me I should have had a bit more to eat. My stomach started to turn from the bobbing in ocean (I didn't have enough weights in the belt to keep me at the bottom of the cage but I sure as hell wasn't going to get out and miss anything to get another.) At one point I was sure I was going to puke so I started thinking about my escape because I was sure puking underwater into the regulator would not have turned out well. It didn't help when the dropped a bucket of chum above my head.


And then, another shark came back and all was forgotten. I didn't get nearly the number of photos I wanted to, because I was so awestruck just watching them attack the chum, swim right at the cage only to turn at what seemed like the last second I didn't want to miss any of it. That's probably why a lot of my pictures are also through the cage instead of through the viewing window. That's where I was looking and I didn't want miss a thing.


As another shark was circling us, the captain started banging on the cage. Our cue to come up. Everyone else cleared out, but I waited until that shark left before I got out. After getting out, I think they got video of me talking about it and I'm pretty sure I just kept saying amazing and awesome. I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get every picture I could of these amazing creatures.











Sitting in a pub today writing this, I kind of wish I booked a second trip for today. Six hours on a boat certainly would have been worth it for another hour in the cage with those animals. The experience wasn't nearly as scary as Shark Week makes it out to be. Even though they weren't very aggressive, I was still glad I was inside a cage. Even if you have a fear of the water or sharks, if you has the opportunity to do this, DO IT. Just make sure to invite me along.

Location:Port Lincoln, South Australia

Weekly pasta

I'm getting better at this homemade pasta thing. The dough freezes quite well too so I made a large batch, portioned it out and froze it. I still makes a mess rolling it out but I'm starting to get the handle on it and it's getting better. The pasta has so much more flavor than dried or even the "fresh" pasta sold in stores. I made a pretty good ricotta gnocchi a while back and I'm thinking about adapting that to use as a filling for some ravioli.

Home Cookin'

I've haven't had much to write about lately. Works been keeping me pretty busy and the weather hasn't been great to want to be outside. So, in some of this down time, I've been doing a bit more home cooking.

The greatest revelation I've had is that homemade pasta us so much better than dried or even the frozen fresh at the grocery store. It definitely takes a bit more effort but it is so worth it. I'm by no means a pro but what's great is that it seems like homemade pasta is pretty forgiving. My last few attempts have been a but wet on the dough but working through adding a bit more flour seems to come out. I think I'd have ether luck if there were two other people helping me roll the pasta out, but doing smaller sheets and making sure the machine is well floured seems to work ok.

Then it's a scant two to three minutes in boiling salted water and directly into the pan with the sauce and you're set. It seems like a 3 to 2 ratio of flor to egg seems to work with a well floured surface.

I need to work a bit on the presentation, but it tasted pretty good with a slow wet roasted lamb ragu and a Tasmanian Pinot.



I think I'll be eating the ragu for a while (I still don't know how to cook a proper portion for one person) so I threw some in top of a creamy polenta. Which worked out quite well.



Plus, cooking at home allows me to dig into my growing wine collection I've picked up through my travels.

It's been a while

I haven't had many reasons to post lately but I thought I'd put a few of the pictures from the past few weeks up. A few weeks ago I spent the day on the harbour cruising around to three or four eastern suburbs beaches. We drove around and when got tired of a beach, moved on to the next. It was a great day and now I want to buy a 37 foot boat.





































I was pretty glad I made it to the dock because that was the result if a fantastic steak and wine. The wine was so good I got online that night ad bought a few, direct from the vineyard.






This was a good Austrian Riesling because it was the Summer of Riesling, after all. And for those who don't drink Riesling, try it. It doesn't have to be sweet. In fact the crap wines are sweet but the good ones are fantastically acidic and they taste of the soil.












Here's the menu at Fix St James. Go there now!!!!!'






Here's the end of the t-bone when the chef let me sign the expediting bar (ignore the phallic look to it):






Sydney then had both the QE2 and QM2 meet in the harbour. The two largest cruise ships in the world met at the opera house. While they were massive, I still don't see the appeal.


















And the perspective shot of the largest cruise ship in the world.






I have just about all the wine I've acquired since being in Oz. I have one more case to bring home, but now it's the fun part. Time to drink.






We then hit a few wines. The winner was the '91 Cullen Reserve Cabernet Merlot.







Some other wines in this time were:













Just finished dinner at FIX again. Great food and spectacular wine. Had a 2006 d'meure Tassie Pinot. This was a wine not on the menu. The restaurant had an allotment of 3. The owner had 1 to make sure it was good, the second bottle went to the wine director if Australia and this bottle was offered to us. Unbelievable. Great softness but monster flavour.





I really wanted the T-bone again until Stu brought out the 48 hour braised lamb shoulder. Yes, 48 hours.






He paired this with a locally made Sangiovese. An unusual grape for Oz but that's the crazy, wacky wines that this list offers. As the owner said, he doesn't run the restaurant for the money. It's so he can drink the wines he wants. If that's the case, I want in.

And now, on to my 30s.

All I need is a corona

Sunset at Prevelly Beach in Margaret River from Matt Hoffman on Vimeo.

Seeking business partners preferably with a green thumb

I had a great day in the Margaret River today. Had a lot if great wines (some not so great) and met some great people as well.

I'm still on Sydney time so I was up and ready to go at 6am. I headed down to the beach for a morning stroll. Something with a pace of an "easy like Sunday morning" stroll. The coastline down here was spectacular. This country has some of the most amazing coastlines. Whether it is a 20 minute ferry ride or across the country. Just awesome.




I popped into town after for a bite to eat since I knew what the day was going to bring. And frankly, when I was done it was barely 8:30 so I stopped at the farmers market and picked up a few local products. Apparently free range eggs were the big seller, at $7 for 30. Then, the fun started.

The first winery I went to was a pretty cool experience. The winery was Blind Corners run by Ben Gould. The vineyard itself has been around for a bit, but Ben has only recently purchased it and put out the first vintages. It's also not open to the public which was cool to show up and get the low down from the wine maker himself. He has 6 total wines in his portfolio and he let me try 5 of them, plus the 2010 vintage sparkling wine which was still in the first fermentation (I believe) and he said has another 2 years before it will be released. But more on that later.

We starts with his Two Brothers line which he buys grapes from other vineyards to process and that is where the majority of his volume comes from. The wines under the Blind Corner label are all single estate grown, hand picked and hand (and sometimes foot) pressed.

The Semmion Sauvignon Blanc was not like the New Zealand Sav Blancs I've had. Bit was more subtle and without the grassy-ness I've expect. He also dries a portion of the grapes before pressing for flavour and to help concentrate the tannins. Something natural to do instead of adding powdered tannins. His wines are all natural. Ben had picked some of the grapes two days earlier to start the drying process getting ready for pressing. They hadn't been drying long enough to really start showing the affects.t

He also has a sparkling wine made with Chenin Blanc. It's made in the typical champagne methodese, but because if the grape he uses it isn't as sweet and is probably more like a prosecco in flavour, as he put it. It had a very distinct nose to it but was very a kin to a prosecco in flavour. He also opened a bottle of a still fermenting 2010 vintage to show me what it's like while the yeast is still working hard. It was very cloudy and didn't have the bubbles that a finished sparkling has, but it had the same flavour characteristics as the 2008 finished product.

I had my first Margaret River Shiraz here as well. The MR Shiraz's, as I would come to find out, is very different than the south Australian Shiraz. The MR are more subtle, fruit filled and don't stick to your palette. I don't have a preference yet, but it will be interesting to put a few Margaret River Shiraz against the Barossa Shiraz (the region better known.)

Lastly I tried the Cabernet. He took his twist on this wine by taking the Italian Amarone approach. He dries about 20% if the grapes an puts those on the bottom of the bin when pressing. The concentrated flavour of the grapes really makes a difference in the final product. It had a god intense cab flavour. One other thing I learned from him is that unlike champagne which can only be called that with vintages grown in a specific region, Amarone doesn't have a region. And because of that the Italian government put a trademark on the word. Apparently they try to enforce it quite well, so we'll see if I get any feedback from using the word here. Needless to say I picked up a few of each.

This was a great small vineyard with a winemaker that puts his twist on the local wines. I'm sure it helped that the winemaker was giving me the tour and insight, but this was probably my favorite winery of the day.

Next I went to Cullen Estates for lunch. And the lunch was fantastic. It was all hyper local. All the produce was grown on site and the venison was raised no more than 5K away. I had a grilled zucchini salad with green beans, tomatoes, feta cheese and a zucchini flower. For the main I had the venison with mashed potatoes, snake beans, roasted mushrooms and red wine braised shallots. Everything tasted like it was supposed to. There was no need for butter or oil for flavour. The falvour was all in the food.

I had a few of these bottles already, so I didn't do a tasting here. And instead of going through all the places individually I went to I'll give the quick rundown.
Knee Deep - fantastic Cabernet
Woodlands - picked up a few cabernet/merlot that were fully of flavour
Cape Mentell - American style Zinfandel
Xanadu - peppery semmion

After a brief stop back at the hotel, I went down to the beach to catch the sunset. It was so worth it too. Sunsets are so much better than sunrises, though that could be because it's more acceptable to drink at sunsets than sunrises, but this was pretty good.








I finished the night, finally, at Must wine bar where I had a few Rieslings and a charcrutie board
. It was good to have a good, crisp, acidic Riesling after the whites I had today. And on the walk back, I couldn't help but notice the stars. Being such an under developed downtown, there are street lights on only the main street. Once you get off it's pitch black and there are stars everywhere. Even Orion, though his belt goes from the horizon up instead of the other way around. I just with I new how to take pictures of stars with my camera. I'll have to figure that out for next time.

Well, it's somewhat late here (at least after the day I've had), so I'm signing off for now.

I can almost smell the grapes fermenting

I just got into the hotel and, even though I drove in the night I like this place already. It's very undeveloped. No lights in the road for miles. I stopped off in a town to try to catch a sunset over the ocean and to grab some dinner so most of my final drive was in darkness with maybe 3 other cars in the final 90 minutes. I was conscious of kangaroos, like you are deer driving through Wisconsin. Thankfully I saw none, but I did see a few bats. What took most of my attention was the stars. Being so undeveloped, there was almost no light pollution. I'm looking forward to tomorrow night to explore the downtown a bit more. There's one short main street with bars and restaurants.

But, until then I'll leave you with the bit of the sunset I did get. Still not too shabby.