Randomly meeting cousins in Port Douglas and making the most out of the days off work

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Despite having been in Port Douglas for a while (at least a few months), settled down with a job, etc., I think I've always found something out of the ordinary routine to write about. This is no exception.

I had Wednesday 1st of August off which was a good thing, due to a back sprain that was killing me, so it was a good day to just stay in pajamas and do nothing. In the evening I went over to my neighbors'/coworkers' house (Bruce and Giselle), because they did a farewell dinner for Florence (French instructor in Calypso), who was leaving Port Douglas to travel around Australia for a while, starting in Cairns. We were 7 in total (the 3 mentioned previously, plus Kane, Alex, Jessie and myself). It was a nice, chilled out dinner (we had a mexican meal; nachos covered in meatsauce, guacamole, cheese, etc.) and beer and wine. I stayed until around midnight and then went to sleep.



I had Thursday off also and so with Kane and Jessie (they both had the day off as well), decided to go diving in Calypso (we can go on days off). We did the first dive in a site I hadn't been to before called Twist, which is in a different reef than the one we usually go to (Opal Reef). We did a dive to about 22 meters and saw a few nudibranchs and a pretty big cuttlefish; they're really cool and they change color all the time. The second site we went to, was The Wedge. I've been to this site several times and I know it fairly well. We got a drop off with the tender, but where we got dropped off was in a different part than I was used to. This resulted in us getting lost (I was leading the dive, so it was my fault technically). Still, even though I got lost, we had an amazing dive, going along a really nice wall, with lots of stuff to see. When we were going to reach our air reserves, we went to the surface, inflated a safety marker bouy and then we got picked up by the tender (we were supposed to get back to the boat diving if we hadn't gotten lost). Anyway, it wasn't much of a problem, we were never in any risk and we're all experienced divers.

After we got back to the boat, we filled the tanks again, had a quick bite to eat and then jumped in the final site: "Two Tone", one of my favorites (this time it was only Jessie and I). We had a very chilled dive and got to see a grey reef shark which was really nice. Seeing sharks always makes my day.



Friday morning I was back at work. That day I had to take introductory divers. In the morning, when people arrive in the boat, the first thing we do is give them fins and masks. While I was doing that, I realized that the people who were in front of me were Chileans, so naturally I responded in Spanish to them. I don't think they were expecting this and one girl was so surprised that she said a very Chilean word: "Chucha!", which was pretty funny (it turns out she's a 3rd cousin of mine, but I'll get to that in a while).

Like I said, I was in charge of introductory divers that day and we had a lot of divers on board so we split all the students between 3 instructors (Richard, Renee and I). I got 3 Chileans and an Australian. There were about 10 Chileans that day, all in one big group (1 family of five: a father, a mother and 3 sons and then friends and girlfriends of the sons and also a cousin of theirs).

Because we had 12 people going diving for the first time, the first instructor, Richard, took his 4 students to a line at the back of the boat to do a series of 3 skills (which are mandatory to go diving) and he was helped by the other instructor, Renee. When they were done doing skills, Renee took her 4 students and I helped her do the skills.

While the first group was doing skills, I was looking out for the second group, who were ready to get in the water. I had seen the paperwork of the divers before and there was a girl whose surname was very familiar and very uncommmon in Chile. I asked the 4 divers who was Camila Caram, and it turned out that one of them was her. Then I asked her if she was related to a Daniela Caram (I had met her briefly in Chile 4 years ago) and she said she was her sister and then I told her that we are related. Now, it's not common for people to know second cousins, let alone know third cousins, but from my father's side I'm a descendant of the "Walbaum" family in Chile. This family has 4 branches in Chile and a lot of people from the different branches know each other. In fact, we have family reunions every 2 years or so. The last one was in November last year and both Camila and I had attended it. So many people attend it, that it's very difficult to get to know everyone. I did know her last name though and I've met her mother (Diana Walbaum) more than once in these meetings. In summary, randomly in Port Douglas, I met a third cousin from Chile.

Later that day, Camila told me that her brother Nicolás, who's studying in Brisbane, was coming to Port Douglas so I gave her my number in case he wanted to contact me.

Another thing that happened that day, was that about 20 minutes after leavng Port Douglas, we saw a hawksbill turtle at the surface, just floating there and trying to get underwater. Sometimes, these turtles get bubbles of air in their bodies which they can't release and they float to the surface. We put got it on board and took it back to the marina, where someone from the Calypso office was waiting for us to take the turtle to a place where they could aid it.



Saturday morning I was at work again and again I did intro dives. Not too much to talk about that. In the evening, I wasn't planning on going out at all, but Jessie came home and said she knew about a bonfire at 4 Mile Beach which was being done by the crew of another boat (Poseidon). She convinced us to go (same people as usual: Kane, Alex, Bruce and Giselle), so we went to buy beers and went to the beach. When we got there, we didn't see any bonfires at first and we ended up crashing a bonfire in which there was a German girl by herself (can't remember her name, but she worked in the Cairns airport). Then, Jessie and Alex went to look for the "Poseidon" bonfire and when they founf it, they came back to get us. Reluctantly we got up, took the German girl with us and we crashed the "Poseidon" bonfire. As it turned out, they all live close by, so we decided to do a joint barbeque or something in the near future. The whole purpose of crashing the bonfire was to get to know new people and I think we managed it. The Poseidon crew that we met that day were Dave, Georgia, Tammy, Julia and Tom. We had a really good time with them.



Sunday morning, back to work. That day, nothing really interesting happened at work and I did introductory dives again. In the evening, a few people from the boat went to have a few beers at a restaurant in the marina: "Lure". Nicolás Caram (my cousin) was in Port Douglas and I told him to meet me there; he was going to stay in my house a few nights. After the beers at Lure, Nicolás and I headed home, bought dinner at a fish and chips store near the house, had a few more beers, watched the olympics for a while and then off to sleep.



The next morning, I had intro divers again. That day I had a Dutch family as students (a father and 2 sons) and a Canadian diver who didn't have his diver licence with him so he had to do an introductory dive as well. Luckily for me, the Dutch had all dived before as well, so it was really easy for me to get the 4 of them in the water and we had some really good dives. The other good thing is that I had them in all 3 sites as well.

Meanwhile, Nicolás also went out to the reef, but he was put on the other company's boat, a boat called "Pure Dive" (it was intended only for divers when it was bought), but ironically it only takes out snorkelers. Anyway, Jessie and Kane were on board that day and they took really good care of him, so he had a sort of a VIP day.

That evening I invited all of them over to my house to have a few drinks because Nicolás was leaving at 3am next morning. It was pretty much what we do all the time, but still good fun.



Tuesday I was back on the boat, but there were no divers this time. They actually got me on the boat to scrub the hull. It's a shit job, but I appreciated the day of work anyway; much better than staying home and not making any money. I got in the water to scrub in all three sites. I got in with scuba gear and stayed between the surface and 2 meters of depth. It gets very uncomfortable at that depth, because to scrub the hull sometimes one has to be upside down and the diver gets the movement of the waves up and down constantly as well, so it's very easy to get seasick. Like I said, a shit job, but better than nothing. I was really tired at the end of the day, so went to bed early.



I had Wednesday off and I made the most out of it. I woke up at around 9am and at 11 I left the house with Jessie to go to a waterfall. We took our bikes and rode for about 2km to get to "Spring creek". We left the bikes there and then started walking up, following the edge of the creek. At one point, we had to continue walking in the creek itself. It was an awesome walk up the creek and the way up is full of huge rocks, small swim holes and a few waterfalls. There is one big waterfall at the very top (about 30 meters high) and it took us about 1:15 hours to get there. At the bottom of the waterfall, there's a decent-size swim hole. We spent about 30 minutes there, sunbathing and jumping in the water.

After that we started to head back home because I wanted to see if it was possible to go sailing again in the J-24 "Mais Oui" out of the Port Douglas Yacht Club (I had done this same thing 2 weeks before). We got back to the house at around 3pm and I called Rosemary Gibbons (my contact to go sailing) and she said she had spots available, so I invited Jessie as well. We rode our bikes to be at the PDYC at 4pm. We got beers and waited to meet with Rosemary and Mike (the skipper). The 5th person on the boat that day was Ryan, a Scottish kitesurfing instructor who was on vacations in Port Douglas. We set out to sail at 5 and we were back by 7 more or less. We all got turns to steer the yacht and manouver a bit with the sails. The weather was good and we had a strong, constant wind from the SE.

Back at the marina, we had dinner, a few more beers and then waited for the raffle that is held every Wednesday there (I bought a 4 dollar ticket to play). The prizes they usually give away are bottles of wine, beers, a T-Shirt, etc. The last two prizes were 50 dollars and I won one of them, which made the day even better. At around 8:30 everyone was pretty tired so we all went back home.



I had Thursday off as well, so I went on a Daintree Tour (to the Daintree rainforest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daintree_Rainforest) with Tropical Journeys, the company I work for and I had the trip for free. I was picked up in the morning at about 7:45 by the tour guide, Peter. There were 8 other people in the van (by coincidence all English). We headed towards Cape Tribulation to visit that part of the Daintree Forest. To get to Cape Tribulation, we had to cross the Daintree river with a ferry. The morning was mainly going to a beach, take a walk in a couple of pathways while Peter talked about the sites and led the way. At around 11:30 we went to Cooper Creek, we got on a small boat and went to look at the crocodiles that catch the sun in the shore at low tides. We saw 3 crocodiles in the 50 minute tour and got pretty close to them, at maybe 7 - 10 meters. After Copper creek we went to have lunch at a very nice restaurant (I had steak) and we stayed there for maybe an hour or so. The last two stops were at an ice cream shop in the middle of Cape Tribulation and then to the Mossman river, for a last guided walk. It was a very chilled out tour and I enjoyed it (although it's definitely not the way I travel, but it was a free ride).



Friday morning it was back to work. we had a lot of divers that day and I got to take out a family of 4 and a few other divers. Highlights of the day was seeing a small cuttlefish: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuttlefish (first time I've seen one in Opal reef) and the biggest highlight was spotting an albino humpback whale, a "migaloo", which is a very, very rare sighting (http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2012/08/10/3565121.htm).

That evening, I went to the supermarket and then Anthony and Melina (my flatmates) got back home after a 2 week trip they did to Adelaide. At night, we had a few drinks at the house, invited Bruce and Giselle over and played a game of dices that Melina showed us.



Saturday and Sunday I had certified divers. On Saturday I had a very good dive at "Two Tone" and saw a couple of gray reef sharks. In the evening I slept for a few hours, had dinner and then to bed. Sunday, nothing extraordinary at work and in the evening, along with a few people from work, we went to see tha latest Batman movie at the "Port Douglas mooonlight cinema", which is an open air cinema. I hadn't been there before and I wasn't dissapointed; it was great (http://www.moonlight.com.au/program.php?location=PortDouglas). It was a bit chilly in the night, but almost everyone takes blankets and rents beanbags as well.



Monday, 13th of August was a very good day at work. I only had one student and got to take him diving in 3 sites. He was a French kid who didn't understand almost any English at all, so I had to have his father help me translate the class. When we got in the water, he understood everything, so I didn't really have any problems. In the second dive, we went to "Two Tone" and we went to look for sharks. We got to the place I usually see them and we saw a gray whaler swimming at maybe 5 meters from us. It was awesome; it stayed there for a few minutes and then it moved away a few meters. Then we moved a few meters towards it. It then moved a bit further away. Then we explored the area for a while and went back to the boat. Being that close to the shark that day was a really cool experience; I could see most of its features; I wish I would've had a camera with me.

Anyway, that wasn't the best part of the day: when we finished the third dive, we found out there was a minke whale at the front of the boat, so without taking out the scuba gear, we snorkeled to see the whale as it swam below us about 3 or 4 times, at maybe 7 - 10 meters. The visibility was excellent and we saw it clearly. I can say it's been one of the best days I've had on the reef so far.

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Comments

[Andres]

saludos desde lonquen
Daniel, muy entretenido tu post. Las fotos tambien están preciosas. Por acá sin novedades. Ayer tuvimos un dia muy grato donde despues de ir a misa nos patachamos de lo lindo con machas a la parmesana, choritos, picorocos, para despues comernos un costillar con papas mayo y un postre de helados con alfajores y rematar con un café y chocolate sahne nuss. Despues jugamos al futbol con los niños y finalmente un poco de estudio. Como vez sin grandes panoramas pero pasandolo bien en familia. un abrazo Andres