After a long month and a half away, I'm finally back home in Cairns. She's still just as gorgeous as ever and actually has a few minor changes with different businesses opening up and what not. I didn't sleep much on my red eye flight from Perth, so when I landed at 4 am, I decided to walk the 8kms or so back to my hostel. I figured I'd get back in time to change for morning yoga and set my day right. It felt good to get back into the groove of working out again. Man, I've been away far too long. I even managed to scrounge up some free breakfast from the leftover bins. Hurrah! I got to talking with my girls before they started work then conversed with some of the other guests that were still there when I had left. I talked about getting my open water diving license and one of the guys mentioned a friend of his that owns a travel shop and can set people up with a volunteer program on the boat to get extra dives. I was sold.
I popped over to the shop, it's called Adventure Cairns and Beyond and Ezzy is the one who owns and runs it. She is amazing and so is the shop. If you need any tour booking and such in the area, or anywhere in Australia really, go see her, you won't be disappointed. I ended up settling on an advanced diver course with Cairns Dive Center, the same place I will do my dive master training with. It ended up working out perfectly. I would start my course on Monday, then go out on the boat Wednesday. I would finish my course on Saturday and go right into volunteering for 8 days. It left me with just over 2 days back in Cairns afterwards to get all my stuff ready to go home. I popped over to CDC afterwards to put down a deposit and talk about doing the traineeship when I come back in September. Everything is sorted!
Upon returning home, I chatted with the girls and got caught up on all the events and things that have happened since I've been gone. We all got ready to go to one of our friend's birthday parties that night and we hung out the whole night just chatting, eating and drinking. A good way to return home. We had mentioned common dishes from our home and decided to have a go at making them for each other. I was on first shift and was going to make tater tot hotdish. I just needed to get the fixing the next morning.
I got a little more sleep and started off on my hotdish making adventure. I ended up finishing it just in time for lunch and everyone enjoyed and ate it up. Success! I did a little shopping with the girls in town just wandering around and we chatted the whole time. By the time we got back home though, we were wrecked. A nap was in order and I forced myself awake afterward to go to Woolshed one last time before I left. It wasn't very busy this night, so after a couple of hours, we left, got our kebab, and went home. The battery on the lock to the hostel was dead, so I had to jump the fence to let us in. A couple of our friends were still up, it was about 1:30. I ended up staying up passed 5 talking to them, they had been here before I left earlier, and we had a lot in common as far as our degrees and interests, so it was great to catch up and just talk with them.
I briefly slept in the next day and got some stuff done in town. I started organizing my stuff for my course and time on the boat. It didn't take long for the lack of sleep to catch up with me, so I eventually knocked off to bed. I actually ended up falling asleep while reading, so I was really wrecked.
The next day I started my theory courses in the pool, and it was amazing! Our instructor, Ethan, is a hilarious Aussie that keeps everything entertaining. We have a pretty good group of people from all over the place. Germany, Canada, USA, Holland, and China. It's true when they say diving is easier than snorkeling. The hardest thing I had to do was at the start, but on my gear and sit down in the shallow end and breathe without a mask, or plugging your nose using the reg. I struggled a little bit because my buoyancy wasn't good, so I kept popping back up to the surface. After probably less than five minutes, we were all sorted and ready to move on. We had some great kebabs for lunch - the guy makes his own humus and sauces and hand raises the lamb and chicken that he uses. The next day was just as great and we got to spend most of it in the pool this time working on getting out buoyancy down. We ended up going a bit late, so we all ran back to our homes as quickly as we could so that we could make it to Reef Teach, a little 2 hour or so interactive talk about the reef and the marine life and what not. We were told about it on our first day of theory and a few of us decided to go. It was very much worth it, and you learn a lot from the people there. We had Gareth, a crazy South African give us the information and you can tell that he really loves what he does. Afterward, I went back home and hung out with my friends for a bit. I had a really early wake up call the next morning to get out to the boat, so I went to bed relatively early and made sure to say goodbye to the few people that were leaving in the next few days.
Early morning stop at the shop for some paperwork and it was time to go on the boat. Ethan was sick and still not any better, so he wasn't able to come out with us, so we got passed over to another instructor, Nick. It's crazy the personality difference. Nick is very calm, cool, and collected, much different from the crazy, out-there Ethan. We popped onto the day boat, Reefkist, and made our way to rendezvous with Kangaroo Explorer, the live board boat. I was starving when I boarded and had heaps of fruit and coffee to keep myself going. I explored the vessel a bit and even met a father and daughter from Minnesota. I was so excited and didn't really shut up the whole time. When lunch finally came, I totally over ate. I may have to drop a weight off my weight belt by the time I'm done! We had a couple of our training dives later and each time I noticed myself getting better and better and having more control. I love it! I had a nice little private room all to myself as well, so that was great. We all ended up staying up pretty late though, just talking and sitting on the moondeck watching the the sky and catching a few shooting starts.
The next day was the first 5:30 am wake up call for our morning dive. We ended up getting in 4 dives that day and a snorkel. It was great. We saw a big moray eel while snorkeling and followed it to a turtle. I do wish I had my own gear though. I can't wait to get it and come back! After our afternoon dives, we were all officially open water certified! Yay! I had some homework to do for my advanced course, so I tried to get that done. I actually ended up falling asleep while doing it and woke up around 1 am to finish. We got to do a boat drop as one of our advanced courses which was nice because we had been on the same reef for awhile due to some bad weather coming in. I heard word that CDC is restarting an instructorship as well... I may have to apply for another visa when I come back in the fall, because being an instructor would be amazing. We'll see. Most of our open water people left, and I got swapped over to volly duties so now I'm getting in with my boat crew family.
I absolutely love being on the boat. The people are amazing, funny and great and you get some amazing food while being able to dive 3 times a day. I managed to stay in my own room for awhile before moving down to the crew cabins with the smelly boys, but it's okay. I think the morning dives are my favorites. It's a good time to see sharks as well, and when we finally moved from the East Timor dive site, I saw 3 sharks in one go on a morning dive. By about my 20th dive I was able to get myself neutrally buoyant in no time. Turtles, lion fish, christmas tree worms, sharks, trigger fish, and so much more. Even if you "don't see anything" on a dive, it's still a good dive in my book.
Toward the end of my time doing volly work, we had a group of new trainees coming in to do their rescue course, so it was fun to watch the different scenarios they had to do. It's pretty cool, because some of those guys will probably still be here when I come back in September. We will have a little mini reunion and welcome new members to the family. I didn't really want to leave the boat on my last day, but there were a few others that were getting off with me, so we would be able to hang out once back on land.
I didn't really have any trouble on land which was surprising. We all decided to hop over to Woolshed for a beer after work and to see off some of the other passengers. The crew showed up about 45 minutes after us. I got my deposit back from CDC, so I had more than enough to pay for the night. More of the crew showed up and we had a blast drinking, bullshitting and cavorting. We decided to break for showers and a change and meet back up at 8. I hadn't had dinner yet, and was 2 ciders down at this point and was feeling it. I went back home to the hostel and chatted with the girls for about an hour before I made a quick change and headed back out to see the crew.
Most of us rocked back up shortly after 8:30 and after awhile went upstairs. It was ladies night so we got free champagne and cocktails all night. The boys also bought some whiskey cokes and I'm sure there was a shot of fireball in there somewhere. My glasses got busted all to hell again. The lens popped out, the frame broke again, and another part of the frame got bent. I just stashed them in my pocket for the night and decided to deal with it in the morning when I was sober. We decided to make the move to Gilligan's. I had never been before, so it seemed like a good idea, though I had to focus. My friends thought I may have been too drunk to get in, but we didn't have to worry. It was all good. It was quite busy, especially for a Sunday night. I think it was around 2 when we finally decided to call it a night. I was lucky I didn't have to get up to work the next morning, one of the guys still did and I felt really bad for him.
I didn't sleep in too much the next day unfortunately, and I'm pretty sure it took me until about 2 pm to completely sober up. I hung out with the girls and we went out for a drink at Salt House that night. We were quite tame about it, thankfully, and got to bed early. It was great to get some good sleep. It's weird to think that tomorrow I'll be starting my long journey back home. It hasn't hit me as hard as when I first left Cairns, but perhaps I'm still in denial. One last hurrah tonight before I leave. I'll make sure to do a post mortem when I get home. Until then, see you guys soon.
Cheers,
Celina
