A python in the backyard

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From Saturday 21st of July until the next Monday I worked on the boat "Calypso" doing "Discover Scuba Diving" (DSD) for people who haven't dived before. Not much to tell there, as it's my everyday job and nothing out of the ordinary happened.

Monday night, Jessie (my housemate) and I were invited to Bruce and Giselle's house to have a few drinks. They also invited Kane and Alex, a couple who just started working in Calypso (He's from NZ and she's Aussie). The next day Kane and Alex moved in with Bruce and Giselle for a while until they find a place to stay.



Tuesday, I worked as host/snorkeler (which involves mainly working in the galley serving the food, doing dishes, serving coffee, etc., plus helping people who have never snorkeled before, doing snorkel tours, etc.). That day I helped a woman from Sri Lanka who had never been able to snorkel before, even though she had tried in numerous ocasions during family holidays. At first I had to get in the water with her and by the end of the day she was snorkeling on her own. Her 2 daughters did introductory dives and her husband dived for the first time in almost 10 years. Needless to say, the whole family was thrilled, they all accomplished something and had a really good day. On the way back to Port Douglas I ended up seating with them talking and they told me about their country and life and how one of the daughter's always wanted to visit Patagonia. I exchanged e-mails with them and then the father, Mohammed (who's a businnessman/photographer) gave me his wild photography website address, which has some really good photos (http://www.abidally.com/mp/album/).

That evening we had Lizzy's farewell party (she also works in Calypso and she's moving to Perth to continue marine biology studies). We all gathered in her apartment (big penthouse which she shares with 5 other people). It's a massive place with a pool table, large common areas, etc. We had some drinks and ordered pizzas (that day was 10 dollar pizza night for locals at the "Ruttle n' Hum"). After that we all went into town. Every Tuesday night there's "Hospitality Night" at a bar called "Watergate". Hospitality mainly refers to all the people who work in the "hospitality industry" (restaurants, hotels and anything to do with tourism mainly) and it turns out it's the best day to go out in the week. We started at the Watergate and ended in the Iron Bar which was packed. I hadn't had a good night out in a while and we all had an excellent time.



Fortunately after Tuesday I had the day off. I woke up at around 10, recovered from the previous night out and watched a couple of movies and had lunch. At around 3:45 I rode my bike to the Port Douglas Yacht Club (PDYC). A few weeks before I met a woman in Calypso, Rosemary Gibbons, who was wearing PDYC T-shirt. I had heard there was a specific day of the week in which people can go to the club and go out sailing for free. I asked her about it and she told me that it was every Wednesday at around 4pm. She gave me her card and I told her I'd call her if I had a Wednesday off. I called her Tuesday afternoon and she invited me to sail in a J-24 (http://www.portdouglasyachtclub.com.au/index.php/j24-sailing).

Anyway, I met her at the club at around 4pm. People go at this time, order a drink and sit down and then get picked up by skipers and crews of yachts to go out sailing. This is all done with the purpose of showing the club and get more members, but also as a tourist attraction. Some of the boats will take as many as 20 people and in the case of the J24 "Mais Oui" in which I was going, only 5 people in total. Initially, there were Mike (the skipper), Rosemary, David (a school teacher who also works as tour guide in the rainforest) and I. We needed a 5th person and Rosemary picked a woman who was on her own. It turned it was an Irish tourist called Maureen who was doing some travelling with her husband (he didn't show up at the club).

We set sail at around 5 and after rigging the yacht we went sailing out of Port Douglas for about 1 1/2 hours. It was all very pleasant, good conversation and the weather was excellent. Rosemary told me a little aout the story of Port Douglas: this town used to be just a handful of fishermen's shacks until the mid 80's in which the first resort was built (The Sheraton). She also told me that because the town is so new, nobody has really been raised here, so pretty much all locals are from somewhere else. A little more on the history of the town: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Douglas,_Queensland.

After getting back to the club, we had a table reserved for us (as is always the case), so we had a few beers and dinner there. The food was pretty good and the dishes were a decent size. Maureen's husband, Owen, joined us for dinner as well. He was working for a company that provides supermarkets and restaurants with food products ans he asked for about 6 months off work to have some time for himself and to travel with Maureen. He was going back to work in December. During dinner there was a raffle as well (which is also done every Wednesday). At the end of dinner, at about 9pm everyone headed back home. It was a good evening and I was invited to go sailing again the next week.



Thursday morning I was back at work and I got to take out certified divers. The last dive we had was at the site called "The Wedge". This is turning to be my favorite site now. We had a drop off with the boat and dove towards Calypso. The visibility was very good (25 - 30 meters). My favorite part of that dive is the initial part when we get dropped at a place that has the bottom at around 25 meters (clearly seen) and the landscape is just amazing, with a wall to the left and sand bottom to the right, which gives a sense of tremendous space. After that, we dive keeping the wall on the left and alternating between the two sides of a sand channel that is formed. There are lots of lettuce corals, plate corals, etc. Quite often we see gray reef sharks, white tip sharks, moray eels, green sea turtles, humphead parrotfish, etc. This kinds of dives really make me like my job.



Friday morning I was back doing DSD again. That day we had quite a good number of intro divers, so we were two instructors doing them; Renee and I (Renee is a Chinese-Australian instructor). I got to take out a family (Michele the mom and Mitch, Bella and Nick, three kids between 13 and 14 years old). The father, Jon, was a certified diver so he went with another instructor. They were all surfers and were very good under water, which made my day very easy. I took them on a second dive as well.

When we were going back to Port Douglas, I went to give them their certificates on doing the intro dive and ended talking with Michele and Jon for a while. They are doing 5 weeks of travel in a campervan around Australia with the kids. They live in Mornington Peninsula near Melbourne and invited me to stay with them when I go there. They also gave a few tips on places to go to when I start travelling in Australia.

After work, Giselle, Bruce, Jessie, Kane, Alex and I went to the Courthouse hotel to spend the money we got on tips, in beers (best way to spend it and good way to end the day).



Saturday, again I did DSD and luckily I had very good "students", which made the day easy. That day Tony, the skipper, had 2 friends on the boat, Jaks and Bryce, an Australian couple who're travelling around Australia until December. They were in Chile a few months ago and we ended up talking for a while They were very nice people and they gave me their card and invited me to stay at their house in Tasmania (they said that if they're not there, their parents will host me). Here's a link to their blog, which has a bit of their travels in Chile, Africa and a few other places: http://anotherbeautifulstretch.squarespace.com/.

In the evening, Flo, a French instructor, invited Bruce, Giselle, Renee, Jessie and I to her flat for dinner. She's leaving Port Douglas soon and wanted to have dinner with us before leaving. She made two very good quiches and a chocolate tart for dessert. That, plus some wine, salad and canapes made for a very good dinner. We left at around midnight after having a great time.



Sunday was a pretty normal day at work, I did intro diving again and the day was pretty quiet, with about 30 customers.

That evening was the highlight of the week - I received a call from Giselle and I wasn't expecting was she said: "There's an 8 ft long python in our backyard". I rushed down the stairs and woke up Jessie, who had fallen asleep watching the olympics. She jumped out of the couch and we went to see the python.

Bruce, Giselle, Alex and Kane were in the backyard just watching the python. They bacame aware of it when they heard their dog, Kosha, barking frantically. Apparently, the python was after a good meal before hibernating (that's the theory). I went back to the house to get my SLR to take some photos of it. Meanwhile, Bruce was trying to take it out of the yard with a stick, but was unsuccesful in the attempt. Someone else poked the python with a broom a few times and we saw it strike at eat - it was really amazing. After a while, the snake slithered to the palm trees and effortlessly climbed up one of them, out of reach. That was when we went back home and Bruce and Giselle decided that it was best to keep Kosha inside the house for a few days.



Monday I did more introductory dives. It was a pretty relaxed day concerning the small amount of passengers. However, after setting up the dive deck and getting everything ready for the day, I got a very bad back strain in the morning and had to work under rather painful conditions. Fortunately, I had Tuesday (today) off and I'm having Wednesday off as well. I should be a lot better after two days of barely doing anything. We'll see how it goes.

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