h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

*sweeping in*

Welcome to h2g2!

I am one of the h2g2 ACEs (Assistant Community Editors) and also one of the h2g2 Guardian Angels, and we are here to welcome and help newcomers.
If you have any questions, just feel free to ask me!

Feisor has an excellent entry for New Researchers found here:
<./>A719840</.>

If you're looking for a way to spice up your user page, try this: <./>A690518</.>

If you would like to find out more about the smileys, just click on this one ---> and it will take you to the h2g2 smiley page!

Hi Kristina

Thanks for the welcome, and for the information... I've been working on my page putting smileys on it and stuff.

I've been looking around the site, too, and trying to come to terms with how much I'm going to have to learn about it before I stop looking like a newbie.

But that doesn't bother me. This place is really cool. My compliments to you and all the others who put so much work into running the site.

Hey! I like your page - you're picking up fast!

Work? Naaaahhh - it's pure pleasure once you become addicted!

Have you tried the <./>DontPanic-tour</.> ? It'll give you a pretty good picture of this place!

Have fun!

Hey there Kristy! *waves to Kristina*

Welcome and all that... I'm an ACE too, but I think you've gotten the hang of things all ready... I honestly wouldn't know you were a newbie if that text didn't appear by your name...

I read that you liked swimming... what's your stroke?

Plato

Hi Plato

yeah, I've got a lot of time on my hands this week, so I've been using it to figure out how to make things fly around on my page etc.

I don't have a stroke. I just like screwing around in the water. I lived by the ocean for most of my life before I moved here and I really miss it. But oh well... I'm sure there's something in Wisconsin to make up for it. If only I could find it.

so did you surf back in Australia?

Nope... never tried it... I used to boogie board *grins* that was when I was fourteen. Four years ago.

really? never? I have heard that sharks are aplenty around australia, and the jellyfish are pretty bad too... but the waves are good so it makes everything else ok...

Yeah, there are "beware of the sharks" signs up around Sydney harbor and they get blue bottle jellyfish (which suck but don't kill anybody) and sometimes boxer jellyfish. Those can be deadly... Further south they get great white sharks, to which you and me would be a light afternoon snack, and of course, if you go up by the barrier reef you can run into even more aquatic creatures that can kill you as well as a few that can make you see things that aren't really there.

But hey, the waves are good.

I got the chance, only once, actually to go up on the great barrier reef... It was absolutely wonderful up there (maybe I should say down there from here, but it depends which way you're looking, and anyway, my head is currently situated in my old home in Sydney). I saw life so beautiful that it still amazes me to think back on it. But I could go on about that for ages.

wow... all we get is bloomin sea lice and hot sand... and the occasional little boy rendered uni-armed by a shark... But the waves are decent... At least for beginners, like me... Shhhh...

Yes, life under the sea can really be quite amazing - I went snorkling in the Red Sea, in a nature reserv called Ras Mohammed, not far from Sharm-el-Sheikh on the Sinai peninsula.

Such a contrast - above water just sand, some rocks, sand, some mountains, sand - just various shades of beige - and under the water all sorts of shapes and colours and patterns!

I have a thing about really deep water... can't stand it... I get the willies I like swimming and all, but I have this thing about being crushed by pressure, or being eaten by a large seacreature, or not making it to the air in time etc.

Then I can definitely recommend Ras Mohammed!

We were snorkling in a bay with a coral reef so close to the beach that during low tide you could walk right out onto the reef, and the water would only reach your chest - so easy to just put your feet down and stand up if the mask started leaking water or something.

I am extremely nearsighted, so I had to swim really close up to the to be able to see them clearly - no problem, since they did not appear to be afraid, except for the Picasso fish who seemed to be very shy.

I could only get a good look at this fish by suddenly hurl myself forward real fast before it had time to vanish - and I hurled myself out over the edge of the reef, staring down a precipice! I would have screamed out loud, had it not been for the snorkel mouthpiece!

Then I realized I wasn't going to fall anywhere, since I was floating on the surface! I hastily swam back though, remembering I had seen a observatory close by..

To my astonishment I at one point discovered two rainbow-coloured fish swimming right beneath me, under my belly - I almost swallowed some water when I bent over double trying to see what they were doing - seems that they were just keeping my rainbow-coloured swim suit company!

You have to be careful when the tide comes back in again though - I accidentally swam right into a wave that pulled me over and town and around like in a washing machine for what felt like an eternity - I could not see anything because the water was filled with bubbles, and I was frantically trying to stay clear of the reef while holding my breath - I had seen some pretty nasty cuts on some of the members of our party! Made it without getting hurt, but I was absolutely exhausted afterwards..

That does sound like fun... maybe I'll give it a whirl sometime... But First I would have to learn shark-defense... I think I'ts that you should hit them on the nose? No that's Crocodiles
Perhaps it's the gills? or maybe the eyes?

I'm told it's the gills. Never had the opportunity to try it out for myself

Yeah, coral cuts suck... even the little ones sting like all frell :p

*I wasonce walking down Fort Meyers Beach on the SW side of Florida, didn't see the big jaged rock in front of me til... SLICE!!! big cut on my big toe due to that...