Job and a place to stay

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Tuesday 22nd of May I went on a familiarization trip on board a boat called Calypso, part of a company called "Tropical Journeys" http://www.calypsoreefcruises.com/. I was applying for an instructor job here and, like the previous week in Cairns, this was a trial to see what the job was like.

I arrived at the marina at 7:30, had a uniform (white shirt and blue shorts) given and did all sorts of things during the day.

The boat can take around 60 passengers plus the crew. It mostly carries snorkelers out to the "Opal Reef" (part of the Great Barrier Reef) and also usually a few certified divers and people who want to do introductory dives (try diving for the first time). The number of the crew varies dependent on the number of passengers and consists of a skipper, a dive supervisor, 1 or two hosts/hostesses (who also go out with the snorkelers), a couple of dive instructors and a photographer. The people of the crew also help in other tasks if they are free (for example, if dive instructors don't have any other divers to take out, they may help the hosts with washing dishes, etc.). The normal day consists on the crew arriving at the boat at 7:30am and setting up the boat for the day (getting dive gear, masks and fins ready, setting up the food, general cleaning, etc.). The passengers get to the boat anywhere between 8:30 and 9:00 and the boat leaves between 9:00 and 9:15. Then, it's about an 1 1/2 hours to get to "Opal Reef". There are different sites in Opal Reef, all very close to each other and the skipper decides which one to go at the last minute, depending on the weather conditions. The boat goes to three different sites during the day and stays in each one for 1 hour. The ride from Port Douglas can be fairly bumpy on the way to the reef and usually people will get seasick (another part of the job; handing out paper bags to seasick passengers). During the way to the reef, the dive instructors do the briefings for the certified divers and another one for the people that are doing introductory dives. There's a separate briefing for the snorkelers as well. As soon as the boat gets to the reef, the divers jump in the water and so do the snorkelers. The passengers jump in and out of the water whenever they want and inside the boat there's hot drinks and things to eat in the meantime. When the boat changes sites, the dive instructors set the gear and fill the tanks for the next dive. After the second dive, there's lunch (it's pretty varied, but every day it's exactly the same food). The people of the crew don't have much free time during the day because they're always doing something and there's about 10-15 minutes to eat something for lunch. Then, the boat heads to the third and final site and there's more snorkeling and diving. The boat heads back to Port Douglas at around 2:30pm and during the ride back, people pay whatever they bought during the day, the hosts collect the money and wash dishes and the dive instructors clean up the diving and snorkeling gear and then finish signing dive logs and giving certificates to the introductory divers. The day is pretty full on, with no time to get bored in between, so they day goes by very quickly.

I liked the familiarization I had that day; during it, I helped the hostess serving food, washing dishes, etc., saw the dive briefing and helped in the dive deck and at the end of the day, when the passengers left, helped clean up the boat.

After being done, I went to speak to the person in charge of hiring people for the company (Chris, one of the sons of the owner of the company) and he told me that the skipper that was on the boat that day (Tony, his brother) apparently liked the way I did things that day, so I was told to take the next day off and go back on Thursday (which meant I was hired on the spot).

That evening, I went back home and ordered a pizza from a restaurant near the house and had dinner with Anthony and Melina, over a bottle of red wine. We agreed on me renting a room in the house as well, so in the same day, I got a job and a place to stay; it was a good day.



I had the next day off, so I went walking to the town (it takes about 50 minutes to walk), specifically to Macrossan St., where all the shops are. I needed to go to the bank and also to see if I could find a used bicycle as well. As I was walking down the street, I ran into some French guys, friends of James, whom I had met before and they invited me for a "house warming" (they were moving into a new place the next day) on Thursday. After going to a few shops, I couldn't find a used bike to buy, so I went to the supermarket to get a few things and just as I was going to get a bus to go back home, Paul, a neighbor, stopped his car and offered to take me back home. He's a divorced journalist in his 50's who lives by himself and hangs around with Anthony and Melina a lot. He's a very friendly and considerate person, with a very interesting life. He had a bike he wasn't using and offered to lend it to me until I bought one, so the going back and forth to work was taken care of then.



Thursday was my first on the boat. That day I had to work as a host (I couldn't go diving because I needed to get a general medical exam for diving before). The job was mostly handing out food, washing dishes, doing some paperwork, etc. The hosts also take people snorkeling, especially those who haven't done it before or don't know how to swim. The boat always goes to 3 different sites in Opal Reef; which is very good for snorkeling, due to shallow waters and good visibility.

Everything was pretty much new, so I was learning a lot. In general, the people of the crew are very friendly and easy going, so it makes learning the job a lot easier.

At the end of the day, we cleaned everything up as usual and then I went home. That day, I got a text message saying I was working the next day as well. The crews for the boats are always done the day before, depending on the number of passengers the next day, so the people working as crew, get notified at around 5:30pm. It's done in a way that everyone gets more or less the same number of working days every week and we get paid every week as well depending on the number of days we work.

After I was done in the boat, I went to a liquor store and bought a bottle of rum to take to the French guys who had invited me to their house that evening. That evening it started raining really hard as soon as I got to the house. During the next few hours, more people arrived; mostly French, some Australians and a few other from different nationalities. We had barbequed chicken and some beers and I got to meet some of the people there; I had a really good time. At around 11pm I had to ride the bike back home because I had to work the next day. It was still pouring rain, so the 30 minutes or so it took me to get home, I got there soaking wet. It was still a good bike ride back home and I oddly enough, I enjoyed. I got home, took a shower and went to sleep.



Friday morning it was still raining a lot and I got a car ride to the marina with a friend of Melina's (Anthony and Melina both work in another boat in the marina). When I got to the boat, I found out it was still going out to the reef, so we prepared for a bumpy ride to the reef, according to the weather forecast. Surely enough, a lot of the passengers got seasick, so a lot of the job that day was handing out paper bags and throwing the used ones in the rubbish bins; all part of the job. There was a lot of current in the dive sites as well, so we jumped in to help people in the water. The way back was a bit better and there weren't as many seasick passengers. It was an interesting day.



I had Saturday off, so I took the time to go to Cairns (it takes about 1 1/2 hours to get there by bus) to get my medical exam and to buy some office supplies I needed. I spent about 4 hours in Cairns, had a light lunch and then went back to Port Douglas. It was a very relaxed day and didn't do much besides that.



Sunday, I had work again and for the third day I worked as a host/snorkeler. That day I also did the accounting and collected the money from the passengers at the end of the day (I learnt to use the credit card machine). I also went through some of the procedures in the ship (how to set a firefighting hose, learn how the bilge pumps work, safety equipment, etc.).



On Monday, I worked again and this time I got to take divers out. This day, I got certified divers, so what I had to do is give them a general dive briefing and then take them out in three different sites. I didn't know any of the sites of course, so I got some information and then just went for it. It all worked out very well; it's pretty easy to find the way around the sites. there was about 10 meters of visibility, which was fairly good and the people really enjoyed the dives. One of the most amazing fish to see in that part of the reef is the Maori Wrasse, a huge bright colored fish http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphead_wrasse.

That evening, Melina invited a friend from work for dinner; Lauren, a girl who had previously worked in Sydney in a judicial office. They both prepared a really good "healthy dinner" (lots of vegetables) and at dinner there was Melina, Lauren, Anthony, Paul and I. For dessert we had ice cream and then, after clearing the plates, we played cards until about 11pm.



On Tuesday, I worked again and this day, I got to do introductory dives. This consists in taking people who have never dived before. First, there's a short class explaining the basic concepts of scuba diving and then they get to do the dive in one of the three sites. Usually we take them down the rope at the stern to which the boat is tied to the reef. At about 1 1/2 meters we do a few basic skills with them, like clearing the mask and regulator and recovering the regulator. Then, we take them down slowly until we reach about 6 meters and then go for a swim, always staying close to them and checking them constantly. Each instructor can take up to 2 introductory divers. That day, I had two students who did very well, so I didn't have to work too hard with them. I also did a dive with certified divers, which was good because it helped me get accustomed to the dive sites.

On the way back, the dive instructors have to wash all the dive gear, as well as the gear used by the snorkelers and when it's all done, finish some paperwork with the divers.



I had Wednesday off, so I took the time to get my debit card from the bank, went to the supermarket and also took paperwork to the company's office (bank account details, copy of the working visa, etc.). That afternoon I stayed working on a small project I have with Melina to make extra money, but I'll write about it if it works out; we'll see about it in a few weeks. Besides that, I watched a movie in the afternoon and started reading a book called "This thing of darkness", which Anthony lent me and it's about the travels of Fitz Roy and Charles Darwin in Chile and Argentina. It's an historic novel and it's a very good read; I'm especially enjoying it because I've been in a lot of the places mentioned in the book.



I had Thursday off as well, so I took time to write the blog, work on the project some more and then had lunch with Melina and Paul in the house. After lunch, Paul suggested to drive "up the mountains" (there aren't any big mountains here); it's actually like going "up the hill", to a place called Mount Molloy. It's a tiny town with no much to see, except a hotel/pub and a little shop across the street. The drive there takes about 30 minutes and the whole way is very green (all rain forest), with farms (there are sheep, cows, horses, etc. along the way) and also a lot of sugar cane plantations. We stopped for about an hour in Mount Molloy and had a coffee in the pub. We ended up talking to a woman working there, Tanya, a New Zealander who had been there for about 18 years. That day it was raining from time to time, so after the coffee, we had a short drive around, stopping to take photos of the animals we encountered on the way and then made our way back home.

At around 5:30pm I phoned Tony (he was in charge of doing crews this week) to see if I was working the next day and it turned out he didn't have my name written down with the other people working on the boat, so he hadn't considered me to work the previous days because of this. He said he was sorry and that he would get me on the boat starting on Saturday. It was a simple mistake and luckily I phoned to check that. So, I was having a third day off...

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Comments

[Andres]

saludos
Hola Daniel, pieza y pega en un mismo dia suena muy, muy bueno. Aca todos bien. Monica en Mexico llega mañana, fue a ver y apoyar a su hermana Paula que enviudó hace un par de semanas. Clemente está de cumpelaños mañana por lo que voy a ir a comprar un bicicleta de regalo. un fuerte abrazo Andres