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Published: July 17th 2008
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Well hostessing on SOF actually turned out to be quite a lot harder than i imagined the hours were very long in the week on the boat and the pay was by day so making your hourly pay next to nothing and your over all pay not that much more.
Main thing is i learnt a lot and had a good expericne as well though. I was so happy and pleased when i got the job but didn't know exactly what it would entail and at the time was happy to have been offered any job really and seeing as it was my first and only offer and it was something i thought i really wanted to do i was happy to have got it.
Started work on SOF Monday 24th March for one week of training/guidance, you have to do the first 3 days unpaid training then 4.5 days guided kind of thing. At first it was exciting/ a bit nerve racking going to the wharf to get on the boat for the first time and meet everyone. Remember thinking the boat was quite a bit smaller and not as nice as i thought it would be at
first but now i see it as bigger and a really nice boat. Had to get on the boat and meet all 20 of the crew at the time at once, everyone was joking and messing about and i didn't have a clue what was going on or what i'd let myself in for. Basically there are 20 crew altogether, 10 on each week so 2 different crews really for week on week off, so 2 of each of the 10 positions on the boat-skipper, first mate, decky, trip director, 2 instrucotrs, 1 japanes instructor, dive master, hostie and chef. All of the crew are really cool people, few people that are travelling like english, irish, scottish etc and most of the australians are not origianlly from Cairns they're up here to dive etc. So it's kind of like everyones in the same boat (ha ha) away from home working/diving/travelling etc so a nice feel. Real mix of people but all pretty cool. So yer boat nice, crew nice, the company is tusa dive/spirit of freedom, they have T5 the day boat as well which goes out to the reef daily as well.
I've learnt loads about boats and
the dive industry which is cool and some uselful skills/knowledge to have.
So basically started then did my traing and since then have done about 6 weeks by myself as the hostess in 3 months like, also amongst all that i got to experience the joys of a re-fit which i wouldn't like to experience again.
Spirit is a wicked dive boat though it does an awesome trip out on the reef etc one of the best in Cairns, we leave Cairns on a Monday and go out to the reef, mon night steam over night up the ribbon reefs as far as ribbon 9 & 10 where the cod hole is and near to Lizard island, the first half of the trip is called the Cod hole trip, the cod hole dive site is famous for the potato cod that are up there and we do a cod feed so this is hgihlight of the first half of the trip. Then we spend the rest of tues n wed up at ribbon 9 & 10 of GBR diving, wednesday evening we steam over to near Lizard island and stop there for the night. Thursday morning we normally
have a change over of passengers or some stay on for the week, new passengers fly from cairns up to lizard island in little chartered planes and then old passengers get off the boat at lizard and fly back to cairns. Then thrusday afternoon we go out to the ribbon 9 &10 again and then thursday night we steam from here 120 miles out to osprey reef in the coral sea to the east of oz. This reef osprey has world famous diving with 1000m walls and drops etc, out here we do the shark feed where about 20 sharks come in for the dive and we nromally spend 2 days out at osprey if the weather is ok (thats a whole other story) then sat night we steam from osprey back to the ribbons to no.3 and spend one more day on the reef then sunday night steam back over night from the ribbons to cairns. So that's the week sounds lovely if you're a passenger not so much fun if you're working lol!!!
Well learnt loads, firstly it is hard working on boats, especailly if you even get slightly sea sick but it makes everything 10 times
harder to do on a boat that is rocking around, boats are obviosuly generally quite small and have loads of little hiding cupboards etc, the safety side of all this is also quite important as well. I learnt lots about the vessel safety and workplace health and safety if i'd stayed working on the boat for longer would have had to do more first aid and elements of shipboard safety etc. There are lots of courses, tickets, qualifications etc you can work your way up to if you want to work on boats!! So yer learnt lots about the boat-port,starboard, stern, bow, the tender, how to tie the boat up, moorings etc, knots, windspeeds, tides-depending on the moon cycle etc. Got to see the boat out of the water when i worked for re-fit as well so this was pretty neat. Boats are pretty mad cool things, 70% of the world is water which is crazy and they're are a load of boats n people who spend their lives on boats.....dad!! So yer this big metal thing is quite neat, especially when it is functioning as a holiday/dive place for a number of people and i was one of the
crew helping run that.
So as a hostess i had quite a few things i had to do-mainly looking after the paseengers, meeting them, getting to know them, looking after them whie they were on the boat, showing them round the boat, cleaning their cabins etc so passenger interaction very impoirtant lol!!!!! Then my other main roles were setting up and preparing/serving for all of the meal times....all 6 of them everyday, basically eat, dive, eat,dive, eat, dive, eat, dive, eat!!!!!! so for me eat clean lol!!!!! So yer looking after the passengers, serving meals, shit loads of cleaning, doing orders and stocktake, sitting up at night etc all great fun. The working day began at 6am for all of us and i wouldnt get to bed much before 10pm most days so 16 hour days.
But overall the boat was a wicked experience, loads of fun and banter, met even more cool people, passengers and crew, got to experience a different work setting, got to learn about working on boats and the dive industry....even got to do one dive even though not supposed to. Kind of interested to learn more about boats and diving but we'll see!!!!!!
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