"My sweet 31" and other events

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After a few weeks of procrastinating and postponing this post, I took the time to write about my latest activities in this small town in Far North Queensland.



I have already been working for "Poseidon" (http://www.poseidon-cruises.com.au/) for about 3 weeks now and so far, as expected, it's been a similar job to what I was doing before in "Calypso". Most instructors are hired to work in 3 different jobs which we get switched around. We find out what we're specifically doing every morning upon arriving in the boat: snorkeling guide, introductory dive instructor or guiding certified divers. We start every morning about 6:50 and finish the day at around 5pm.

I feel more at ease now that I know the jobs better on the boat (it runs a bit different to what I was used to) and some days are better than others, I guess just like in any job. I'm saving up the last bit of money for the next 6 weeks before I start my 11 or so month trip to different corners of the earth.



Before I could do any diving on the boat, I had to renew my "Australian Workplace first Aid and Health" certificate, so I had to take a day off and go to Cairns to do it. I contacted Alex van Welderen, a PADI Course Director who does it (it's a 1 day course) in the First Aid Academy of Pro Dive in Cairns.

A Canadian dive instructor, Charles St. Germain who also just started working for Poseidon, needed to do the course as well, so both of us went to Cairns that day. I had met his girlfriend before, a German girl named Adriana, who works for a dive school in Port Douglas (Bue Dive).

Anyway, that morning, in order to arrive to the course on time, we had to take a bus that leaves Port Douglas at 6am. We arrived in Cairns early, so it gave us time to have breakfast and then head to the First Aid Academy.



The course itself isn't hard (I had renewed my oxygen provider course 1 week prior, so a few things were still very fresh in my mind), but it's always good to have a refresher on emergency first response techniques. The course lasted until about 5pm and then I wanted to stay in Cairns to attend a "Reef Teach" chat that is given a few times per week. This reef chat consists on teaching people mainly about the different types of fish and corals that exist in the Great Barrier Reef (oriented towards tourists who visit the reef). I wanted to go so I could use this information at work.



We had a few hours before it started so we went to eat at Mc Donald's (there isn't one in Port Douglas and I hadn't had it in about 6 months) and I went to buy a few thing I needed at a dive shop.



The reef teach itself was great, very informative and given in a easy to understand presentation. We also got a discount for working in the dive industry, so it only cost us 10 AUD.



We finished at around 9 and then we contacted a bus company to go back to Port Douglas. Buses don't go to Port Douglas very often at that time of night so we had to wait for an hour to take the next one. We went to kill time at a backpacker's resort (Gilligan's), where we had a few beers in its massive pub.

Finally we arrived in Port Douglas at around midnight. Sleep and go to work the next morning.



About a week later, on one of my days off, I went to the Daintree rainforest (declared World Heritage area) with Anthony and Melina, about an 1:15 hour drive from Port Douglas. I've been to the Daintree several times and I've written about it in previous posts.

We wanted to go to the "Blue Hole" a hidden swim hole. We arrived there at around noon and stayed there for a few hours, getting in the water and also taking photos of the place. Then, we went to look for a place to have lunch and ended up in the "Mason Restaurant", a small restaurant in Cape Tribulation.

Melina had to work in a Mexican restaurant in the evening, so we had to go back to Port Douglas rather early.



The next couple of weeks I was pretty busy at work with not much rest in between. November 25th was my birthday and it was a good one. I woke up that Sunday to go to work and Melina and Anthony surprised me that morning with a birthday gift - a really nice shirt. I had a light breakfast and as usual, I had to leave at around 6:30am to get to the Marina on time.



That day at work I was taking introductory divers. The day was pretty normal until the dive I had on the third site. In the 3rd site I took out 4 divers. About 20 minutes into the dive I saw the ship's photographer who was taking photos of the customers and at that time in particular he was using a cuttlefish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuttlefish) as first plane with the divers on the background for the photos. I waited while the divers in my group took turns to have their photos taken. When the photographer was done I got ready to head back to the boat, but suddenly I realised that the cuttlefish was somehow going towards me. I held out my hand and the cuttlefish swam right to it and started sensing it with its tentacles. After that, I put my hands around it, doing enveloping movements, as if controlling a hovering object. Meanwhile the cuttlefish stayed motionless, changing colors in the process. While this was going on, I had the 4 divers in a semicircle watching the whole thing and then I saw a group of snorkelers right above me (I was only at about 6mts), watching the show. This is the first time I've been able to do something like this (maybe customers think this is a usual thing we do), but it all seemed quite natural, it was a very cool experience. Cuttlefish are usually timid and I haven't seen them approach divers before. Definetely one of the dives and a "birthday present" I'll remember, it really stood out.



I wanted to celebrate my 31st birthday, so I invited my friends from "Calypso", people from "Poseidon" and a few other friends for drinks at Bruce and Giselle's house, our usual place to hang out. Their house is one big open space that merges the living room, kitchen, a terrace, the pool and a pretty big garden.

I didn't stress too much for preparations. I bought a few things as appetizers, everyone brought their own drinks and I bought a bunch of pizzas later on. Simple and good. I also received 3 cakes; 2 cheese cakes that Melina made and a chocolate cake that Julie, an American friend, made for me. About 20 friends showed up (Bruce, Giselle, Lisa, Melina, Anthony, Kane, Alex, Andy, Daisy, Zane, Charles, Adriana, Maya, Richard, Julie, Paul, Fiona, Robbie, Astrid and Lachie). We started at around 7:30pm and it went on until about 1:30am (good considered that a lot of people worked the next day). Good music, birthday hats, cakes, balloons, good food, plenty of drinks and great company; can't get much better than that. Fortunately I had the next day off, which made my birthday celebration even better.



The best thing about working for "Poseidon" is being able to dive a different part of the Great Barrier Reef. I was diving in "Opal Reef" since May and now I'm doing dives in "Agincourt Reef". I don't think it's fair to label one or the other as better or worse; both have some really good dive sites.

In Agincourt I think I've seen more variety of mega fauna (rays, sharks, eels, etc.) which is what I like the most. Lots of white tip reef sharks, and quite a few grey reef sharks, along with moray eels, turtles, etc.

A couple of days ago I did a very good dive at a site called "Gary's gut", named after Gary, a very fat instructor who works in Port Douglas. It consists of a wall that goes down to about 40mts. I stayed at about 22 mts with a group of certified divers and went back to the boat at a shallow 10mts.

The second dive of the day was at a site called "Helm's Deep". We jumped from the boat, did a negative entry (as soon as we jumped we stayed underwater straight away without surfacing) and then the boat went to the mooring block and we drifted towards where the boat was tide to. In that one we saw a lot of unicorn fish, many spotted sweetlips, a big flatworm, etc.

The third site was "Barracuda Bommie", a huge rock that's full of fish: barracudas, lionfish, usually white tip reef sharks, a lot of small colorfull fish, groupers, etc.

All three dives were excellent, all the people I took diving were good divers and on top of all, very nice people as well. Those days I wonder how it is I'm getting payed to do this (although there are somedays I think I should be getting payed more).



A few other random things that I've done: I went out to a pub called "Rattle and Hum" for Sonia's farewell party (she was an instructor in "Poseidon") and I met with a large group of people from the boat there.

Another day I went to Bruce and Giselle's house for drinks and pizza, mainly to catch up, now that I don't see them that often.

I've also been reading my grandfather's recently released autobiography. Very interesting all the datails about his life that I had no idea of and great source of information about my family's history. I've thouroughly enjoyed it so far.



Last but not least: Christmas is upon us. Melina is very enthusiastic when it comes to celebrating holidays, especially if they include decorations. I described the Halloween party we had a month ago in a previous post.

One day, after arriving from work, I found heaps of X-Mas decorations in the living room. She and her friend Lauren had gone that day to Cairns to do "a bit of X-Mas shopping". Needless to say, she had Anthony and me help her with decorating the house that same day; all three of us wearing Santa hats and working while listening to X-Mas music (I finished putting my selection of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra X-Mas albums). The house is now fully decorated and full of lights everywhere.



Melina organized a dinner at the Mexican restaurant she was working for (she's now working in a sailboat called "Aquarius") and 10 of us showed up: Anthony and Melina, Lauren, Giselle and Bruce, Robbie and Astrid, Kane and Alex and myself.

We're now in full summer weather, with temperatures over 30ºC every day and it's been very humid as well (tropical area), so imagine what it was like to have spicy Mexican food in those conditions. Still, we had a really good time and what she wanted to do was organize a X-Mas dinner for the 24th. She wants to have about 15-20 of our friends over and most also agreed to have a "secret Santa". Looks like it's going to be a good celebration and the idea is to have everyone cooperate with food and drinks. I'm preparing a very Chilean X-Mas drink, "Cola de Mono" (Monkey's Tail).



That's all for now, to my regular readers, stay tuned for upcoming events in the next weeks and don't forget to send comments (include family news, etc.). Special thanks to my uncle/"compadre" Andrés for the constant comments.



PS: Feliz cumpleaños Mamo, un abrazo y un beso grande.

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Comments

[Andres]

saludos desde Lonquen
Hola dani, Feliz cumpleaños atrasado.Que bueno que lo hayas celebrado enbuena compañia. Nosotros tuvinos la primera comuniion de Trinidad en que vineron la Cucha Danile y el Jose Manuel. Estuvo muy bonita y Trinidad muy contenta especialmente con que muchos pudieran acompañarla en ese importante dia. en esta época del año estamos muy ocupados con el vino ya que nos piden para regalos de navidad. Estamos algo atrasados con lo de la ora navideña de los niños y en medio del proceso del amigo secreto que hacemos todos los años. hay una casilla en la casa de margarita y ahí dejamos y retiramos cartas y dulces para el amigo secreto. Estamos todos bien , un fuerte abrazo Andres Monica y niños