Mel and Mike hang in there during 'Amazing Race' premiere

Things were looking good for Mel and Mike White when the season premiere of “The Amazing Race” ended Sunday night.

After jetting from California to Australia, the father/son team completed a Roadblock that had Mel swimming with sharks and arrived at the pit stop in ninth place, where host Phil Keoghan told them that this leg of the race wasn’t over just yet.

But let’s start from the beginning, which found Mel and Mike and the 10 other all-star teams -- including cowboy brothers Jet and Cord, best friends Zev and Justin, Harlem Globetrotters Flight Time and Big Easy, mother/son team Margie and Luke, former NFL cheerleaders Jaime and Cara, couple Kent and Vyxsin, engaged couple Kris and Amanda, sisters Kisha and Jen, and father/daughter duos Ron and Christina and Gary and Mallory -- arriving in a field full of windmills in Palm Springs, Calif.

The game started rather quickly, with host Phil Keoghan telling racers they had to search a nearby area for a flag that bore the name of an airline that flies to Queensland and the Northern Territories.

The first eight teams to find the right flag would get seats on the first flight to Australia, which landed 90 minutes before the second one.

The last team to find it would earn a U-Turn, which would later require them to complete both parts of that episode’s Detour (each episode has a Roadblock, something that must be completed by one team member, and a Detour, which requires teams to choose between two challenges that are presented to them).

Mel and Mike found the Qantas flag first, followed by the Cowboys (yay!), Kent and Vyxsin, Zev and Justin, Ron and Christina, the Globetrotters, Margie and Luke and the cheerleaders.

Kisha and Jen, Gary and Mallory and Kris and Amanda -- with the last duo earning the dreaded U-Turn -- wound up on the second flight

But the entire game changed when Mel and Mike’s plane had to land in Honolulu after a passenger had a heart attack.

“We went from racing for first to racing for last,” said Justin, who, along with Zev, was wearing a Harlem Globetrotters shirt in solidarity with their pals. “It sucks.”

Once the teams arrived in Australia, the race was on.

They had to travel first by train to Sydney Harbor, then by ferry to a place called Oceanworld, where one teammate had to don scuba gear and search for giant compasses scattered across the floor of a tank full of 16-foot sharks and a sting ray Phil said is as big as a queen-size bed (eek!).

After finding the compasses, teams then had to use them to decipher a sentence written out with nautical flags to get their next clue.

Mel chose to swim with the sharks and seemed to find the compass pretty quickly, bypassing Vyxsin, whom partner Kent said looked like a pink-haired Little Mermaid in the water.

For his part, Cowboy Jet wasn’t very excited about the water tank.

“I’m from Oklahoma,” he said. “I don’t do water. I don’t even take baths.”

After finishing the Roadblock, Mel and Mike were off to their next challenge: sailing a 16-foot skiff along the waters of Manly Bay and to a buoy that held their next clue, which instructed them to find the next pit stop at Shelly Beach.

Gary and Mallory were the first team to arrive at the pit stop and get the news that this leg of the race wasn’t over. Mallory was in shock and asked Phil if he was serious.

“Yes, I’m very serious,” he said. “Mallory, this is no time to dilly dally. Just get going.”

You tell her, Phil.

The hour ended with Mel and Mike arriving at the pit stop in ninth place, while the Cowboys struggled mightily with the nautical message. I’m not sure what Jet was doing as he offered up two completely wrong and out-there guesses.

Then “To be continued” flashed on the screen, and I have to hope that the Cowboys, my second favorite team behind Mel and Mike, will mount a serious comeback next week.

I don’t want Jet’s words from the beginning of the hour to come back to haunt him.

“I don’t think we have to cheat to win the race,” he said, “and I don’t think nice guys always finish last.”

And that’s exactly why I’ll be rooting for them and Mel and Mike to go far this season.