Blue moon

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I've had to get creative with titles for the different posts, since I've been writing from the same place for over 3 months now. It's not that easy writing about everyday life if I'm not traveling and still trying to write interesting enough posts for my family to read back home - Challenge accepted.

In most of the other posts, I've written what I've done day by day. In this one, I'm going to try a different aproach and write about things I remember about this week, not worrying too much about the chronological order.



This last week (since August 25th) has mostly been a big blur of working and diving, with some days better than others, of course. I can recall a couple of really good days in which I had introductory divers who were all really good underwater and that always enables me to have good dives, which is what this job is all about. A few days ago I was taking out a couple of divers on the site called "2 Tone" and another instructor, Kane, who went diving on his day off, also went with me because he wanted to see the usual route I do when I take divers to see sharks. We got to the place in which there are about 3 resident gray reef sharks, also commonly known as "grey whalers" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_reef_shark). To have a good chance of seeing them, I have to aproach the place in which they usually are in, slowly and trying not to frighten them away. There's usually a very strong current in which I have to swim against to get there. Once I get to the place, I hold on to a rock and wait for them to swim close by. That day we had a shark at about 5 meters swimming for a few seconds and then it went away. After the sharks goes away, I hang around that place which usually also has lots of barracudas and other big fish. That day, the same shark went past us a couple more times, I guess mostly out of curiosity and we could see all of its features really well. Those dives always make my day.

One of the other dives I had this week was at a place called SNO (it means South-North Opal, or the southermost part of North Opal reef). In that one I saw a black tip reef shark very close in very good visibility, which was swimming in very shallow waters, almost breaking the surface (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacktip_reef_shark).



Friday night (August 31st) I had a few drinks with Bruce, Giselle, Jessie and her boyfriend Tom at the house. We were invited to a bonfire that the guys that work for one of the other dive companies (Poseidon) were having. That day I went to the supermarket and on the way back home I ran into one of the girls who work there, Julia (from Canada) and she said we were invited if we wanted to go.

I tried to get the others to go with me, but because most were working the next day (I had the next day off), I ended up going by myself. There's a guy called Tham (also works in Poseidon) who always does a bonfire for full moons. This was the second full moon of the month and - something I learned that day - a second full moon in a month is called a "blue moon", hence the title for this post.

One of the girls at the bonfire told me she had seen a few hippies earlier holding rocks and looking at the moon to get them charged with energies.

The setup they had for the bonfire was spectacular: a sand made semi circle which resembled a big couch (it even had cushions) for about 12 people and in the middle, a pretty big fireplace. There were still about 7 people when I got there and we stayed until past midnight. Two of them took turns with a guitar while a few sang along, others chatting and others just chilling and looking at the fire. In all, it was a good idea to have gone there and we decided to try to get the two crews to meet more often.

A fire can be really hipnotizing, Just staring at it gave me a very soothing and relaxing state of mind. Not many things can relax you like staring at a fire. It made me think of a specific strip of the Calvin and Hobbs comic (which I found on the internet) - http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1989/01/07.



Saturday I took the time to call my parents and had a really good video-conversation with them. They were in our country house in a place called "Palmas de Ocoa" and took the oportunity to show me some of the changes they've done, including the new kitchen which looks amazing and some stained-glass windows my mom made recently. My mom made some comments about my hair - how curly it is and how blonde it's gotten. She said it's just like when I was a kid, it was pretty funny. I've let my hair grow somewhat (I used to have haircuts every 2 weeks or so) and because I'm working on a boat, it's been getting blonder with the sun. I also found out my father will give a lecture in an anthropology seminar based on the thesis he made for his masters in ethno-psichology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_anthropology#Ethnopsychology), which I think is really cool. Anyway, it was really nice talking with them and knowing everyone's fine back home.

That evening I met with Renee (dive instructor at Calypso) to watch "The Expendables 2" (http://www.theexpendables2film.com/index.html). She went with her parents who are visiting her for a few days. I thought the movie was far better than the first one and I really enjoyed it. It has almost every action movie star from the 80's - 90's and every action movie cliché you can think about; exactly what I expected, it was awesome.



I had Sunday off as well, so I had a late sleep in until 10:30, had some breakfast and then rode my bike to the bike shop I bought the bike from for its free 6 week maintenance. While that was being done I went to the market to take some photos. What I liked the most is a guy that sells T-Shirts with his own designs and they're quite funny. I also liked the designs of didgeridoos (aboriginal wind instruments) someone else was selling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didgeridoo). From the market I went to take photos of the pier where people usually go fishing, I went to a lookout I hadn't been to before and then to Macrossan St. to take a few more photos of the "bussiest street" in town.



The last couple of weeks I was stressing a bit about not making enough money to continue traveling next year and I was starting to consider other options besides working in diving. I realized I have a very good thing going on with the diving industry and having a year of diving is truly a privilege, so instead of worrying too much about the money I'm going to "concentrate" more in just enjoying the whole experience and stop worrying about the future. I know I'll make it work once I start traveling anyway.



One last thing, I recently bought a new dive housing for my gopro HD Hero 2 camera (http://gopro.com/hd-hero-accessories/dive-housing/?gclid=CJP3pIm4lLICFXBUpgodL1wAJg). I have the original housing, the images and video underwater come out very blurry, so it's not worth taking it. I also bought a red filter for the housing to compensate for color loss underwater. I'm pretty excited about it and once I get it, I'll go try it out on the first day off I get and I'll upload a few videos of the sites I usually go to (hopefully with some sharks in them as well).

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Comments

[Daniel F]

Good
Danny Boy: super bueno tu ultimo post. Me gustó la forma en que lo escribiste. Quizás la cronología no es tan importante si los haces por semana. Keep on working.