Advertisement
Published: June 15th 2012
A few days before Saturday, Bruce and I had been talking about doing a barbeque and having a bonfire at the beach; we had the idea of doing it, but didn't make any formal plans.
That day I was working on the boat "Pure Dive", with a group of people that chartered the boat for the day. I can't remember what they did specifically , but they were from all over Australia and a lot of them had never seen each other before, but had talked on the phone for work lots of times.
Talking to a Swedish guy with whom I dived that day, he told me that every two years, they got together for a "conference" during a weekend. This conference weekend involved a lot of going out, drinking, snorkeling, doing various tours and playing golf. As a joke he told me he had worked that day because he had sent an e-mail. That day, as usual, we had certified divers and people doing introductory dives. I got to go with the certified divers and had a very relaxed day, with 3 divers and they did 2 dives only.
When I got back to Port Douglas,
I went to talk to Bruce and we decided to do the barbeque that day and we invited Lance and Florence as well. After work we went to get things at a supermarket and then at 8pm we went to the beachside (5 minutes from my house) where there are public barbeques. We bought pork and rump steak and a few bottles of wine. I offered to bbq the meat "Chilean style", which so far has had pretty good results I must say and that day was no exception; it was very good. We also had salads we had brought from Calypso (we often take leftovers). While I was doing the bbq, a backpacker campervan showed up at the place and out of it came two French girls who were travelling and looking to work in a farm. Bruce went to speak with them and invited them over. In total, we were 7 people and had a great time. After we ate, we went to the beach and we got to see the moon rising, which is usually a spectacular sight, with the moon turning from red to white as it rises over the horizon.
There were people doing
a bonfire right next to us and we ended up joining them. They were from various nationalities, all living in Port Douglas. They left after a while, so we got the bonfire for ourselves. Because most of the other people were working the other day, we called it a night at around midnight.
I had Sunday off, but I wanted to go diving, so I went on Calypso as a passenger (we get to go there for free on our days off if we want to). It was really relaxed and I had time to talk to people, read a book, etc. I joined the certified divers and went to dive with Lance, who was in charge of the certified divers that day. Because we both knew different parts of the dive sites, we took turns leading the dives, so between the two of us got really good dives for the customers and we both got to see different parts of the dive sites. Specifically in the second dive, in a site called "Two Tone", I had found a spot where I usually get to see sharks, so we headed that way and saw two sharks that
time. Then we finished the dive in very shallow waters, at about 3 - 5 meters, in which most of the marine life in the reef is.
During the first dive, Lance was leading and I was behind, closing the group. There was a diver a few meters to my left side and while we were swimming, I heard a noise which caught my attention and when I looked at the diver, I realized that for some reason he was starting to panic. We were at 11 meters, so I headed over to him and grabbed him by his BCD (buoyancy compensating device) and had him make eye contact with me and told him to take deep breaths and try to relax while I took him slowly to the surface. He managed to control himself, we got to the surface and then I took him back to the boat. Apparently, he hadn't dived in a while and he was a smoker, so he felt he wasn't getting enough air underwater and started panicking when I saw him. It's good to see that the training works and that one is able to react well in situations like this. After that,
I looked for the bubbles from the other divers in the surface, swam there and joined them again.
All three dives that day, I really enjoyed them, mostly because I was just following someone else around and just focused on enjoying the dive. In those conditions, it's amazing how you forget about everything else in your life and have a time to totally disconnect from the world; that relaxing and peaceful sensation is one of the best things about diving.
On the way back to Port Douglas, I had a beer while reading a book and then ended up talking to a journalist who had lived in the Middle East for 16 years and because I had lived in Israel for two years as a kid, we had a topic in common.
After getting back to Port Douglas, I went on board a sailboat called "Aquarius", also part of the company I work for. This boat goes to the Low Isles during the day, taking only snorkelers and in the evening it sets out to see the sunset from the sea. I went on the sunset sail to see what it was like and also because it
seemed like a good combination to do with the diving that day. It took about an hour and half - 2 hours in all and it was very pleasant. Despite the fact that I went by myself, I was well taken care of by the 2 girls that worked there, both of whom I knew or had seen in the company's office. One of the reasons I wanted to go was to take photos of the sunset, which I got really goot shots of.
After we got back to the marina, I went to Macrossan St. to see the opening hours of the post office and a few stores I needed to go to next morning. That didn't take long and as I was walking to the bus stop to go back home, I ran into Dave and Steph (Calypso customers with whom I went out for beers on Wednesday that week) and got to talk to them for a few minutes. They had just returned from Cape Tribulation after a few days and they were leaving back to Melbourne in two days and we made plans to maybe get together next day.
I had another
day off on Monday, which I took to just chill out after 9 days of full on work and diving. I woke up late and at lunch I went to get fish and chips at a store that's very close to home. I ate right there, outside the store and then took a bus to town. I needed to go to the post office, I wanted to get a haircut and also to speak to an accountant. As it turned out that day, it was "the Queen's Birthday", so it was a public holiday (although I didn't see anyone celebrating it). All the things I needed to do would have to wait, so instead, I went to get ice cream and took a short walk to a lookout I hadn't been to before that overlooks 4 Mile Beach. There was an Australian guy on the lookout taking photos and he asked me if I could take a photo of him with his camera and he'd take a photo of me with my camera. We exchanged a few words before each went our separate paths. He was travelling all over Australia for about a month - he was fulfilling his life
dream - "I worked 20 years for this" he said. - I'm planning on travelling for 2 years (I certainly haven't been working for 20 years) and I've met people travelling 3 or more years inthey're just in their twenties. It's incredible to see how different perceptions are from one generation to another.
After the lookout, I went to an old lighthouse that has a very nice view and that's about 1km away from 4 Mile Beach. Then I took a bus back home and went straight to the poolside where I worked on the blog and then got in the pool and swam for a while to cool off. The weather the past couple of weeks has been really good. After that I went inside the house and shortly after, Bruce and Josh showed up at the house with beer and wine. I had spoken with them earlier about getting together in my house and ordering pizzas and have a few beers and/or wine. After that, Giselle (Bruce's fiancee) arrived, plus Dave and Steph and Anthony and Melina (the people I live with). It was a great evening.
Bruce, Dave and I went to buy the pizzas
at a place called "The Beach Shack" which is about 5 minutes walking distance to the house and they're very good (we ordered one for each, so 8 in total). While we were waiting, we played a game of pool and I've got to say I was amazed by Bruce's skills in the game, shooting balls over others and getting them in the pockets. The rest of the night we spent having the pizzas and beer/wine/cider outside and having great conversations; good times.
Next day it was time to get to work again. I must admit it's not the best day I've had. I was in charge of the introductory dives that day and had a very hard group of students. I had two groups of people and really had problems with the first one - there are just people who are not meant to be in the water. In the end, I was running late with the schedules and rushing to try and catch up on the timings; it was just one of those days. I arrived home that day and went to sleep early.
On Wednesday, I was in charge of introductory
dives as well. This day was really good; I had students who understood everything pretty fast and the whole day ran smoothly. In the second dive site I had no students (most of them were doing another dive in the third site), so I asked of I could do a dive with other divers at that site (called "Sno"). I hadn't been in that site before and it was a good dive. It's a sort of underwater hill that goes down to about 20 meters. Its top is about 3 meters from the surface and it's a beatiful place full of giant corals, perfect for snorkelers. We did a 55 minute dive and stayed in the shallow area for most of the time. It was great to have a "fun dive" during a work day. In that sense, the people at Calypso are very flexible which makes it a great place to work at. Like I said, the whole day went by smoothly and all the divers I had that day told me numerous times how good it had been, which is really nice to hear from the customers. After work, I went to get a beer with Lance, Jenny
and Jesse, an American girl who just started working at Calypso. She's already been travelling for 3 years and I was impressed by how much things she's done and places she's seen, a very interesting person with an interesting life.
After a while Lance and Jenny went home and I was left with Jesse. We ordered another jug of beer and then I had to leave because I was invited for dinner by Giselle and Bruce. I called them and asked them if I could invite Jesse as well. Then we rode our bikes from the marina to the 4 Mile shops, right next to where I live and bough a bottle of wine. We got to Giselle and Bruce's house and stayed outside talking, while their dog Kosher ran around frantically. Dinner consisted on potatos, chicken and vegetables, all cooked by Giselle, which was really good. Then, while Bruce did the dishes, I went home to get a box of ice cream and coffee. We stayed there at until about 11pm and then everybody called it a night.
Tursday was an interesting day at work. We were told that we would get that day an
American family of "X-Large" people, all divers, who had had a bad experience with another dive company a few days before, because the boat they were on didn't have enough "X-L" dive gear and also had problems with the weight belts, etc. They were brought to Calypso by someone assuring them they would have a good experience here. We were 3 instructors that day and out of the three, I got stuck with the X-L family. I must admit that it's very annoying to have to take people out diving that are out of shape, because there's a lot of extra things to help them out with which they can't do themselves. The family was made of a father who hadn't dived in 20 years (but had done a refresher course a few days earlier), a mother who was a fairly new diver, a daughter who was a new diver as well and only got certified to dive at no more than 12 meters and two sons who were decent divers, both with the advanced open water course.
That whole day I really had to rush to get them ready to dive in every site; first because of the
extra time taken in giving them the correct amount of weights, giving them double weight belts, the father whose belt kept falling off until I put two weight belts in his BCD pockets and having to help them put on the fins, etc. Getting them out of the water was another problem; having to get help them with their fins as well, helping them walk from the platforms up the boat, etc. I still did all of this with my best smile and being very polite about it. I think they had a very good time at the end; at least they were very grateful and told me they had a good experience and I even got a tip at the end of the day. It wasn't a great day, but I was glad to have been up to the task.
After work I got a ride back home with Bruce and Giselle and then we went to a bar called Ruttle n' Hum which that day had 10 dollar T-bone steaks for the locals (which I am now). By coincidence, most of the crew that day was there and we ended up in one big table. I left
at around 8pm because I was really tired and wanted to sleep.
Friday I had off work and it was a day in which I did almost nothing. Just watched a couple of movies, worked on the blog, etc. Not much to tell about it, just a chilled out day in paradise.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.136s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 10; qc: 57; dbt: 0.0854s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Andres
non-member comment
saludos
Daniel, que bueno que pasate un excelente fin de semana. Te pasaste para fanatico al ir a buceaar en tu dia libre despues de 9 dias de pega. Muy bonitas las fotos de Opal Reef. Me metí a google earth para ver donde queda Port Douglas y ahora entiendo porque en invierno siempre estas en polera. Debe ser un lugar maravilloso. Acá todos bien. El fin de semana pasado fuimos a los Vilos a celebrar los 50 años de un amigo y lo pasamos muy bien. mañana la Sofi compite en debate con el instituto nacional que ha salido varias veces campeon nacional de debates por las semifinales. Vamos a ver que pasa. En la semana ha llovido mucho lo que es muy bueno para todos. un abrazo Andres