Diving My Ass Off

Ahoy Explorers! All New Explorers Must Answer A Science Question. I don't know what that means but a guy on the boat keeps saying it every time new people arrive on board so I am guessing it is some sort of reference to something or other. But anyways the point is: Ahoy! I am back from sea for a while to share some stories. You haven't even heard about my adventures whitewater rafting or wakeboarding at the cable ski park. I am still waiting on some friends to send me pictures from those events for me to post so when that happens you will hear more. Anyways, the great blue vastness. Actually the Great Barrier Reef. GBR.

So here is how the Cairns epic starts. I get hear with my madre thinking a week up in Queensland will be sufficient to sate my outdoorsy adventure craziness cravings. After being pretty ready to leave Sydney I expected to be psyched to keep moving for a while. But that was not the case. I did three days out on the GBR like I talked about before and loved it and only wanted to do more of it. So I began scouting around trying to find either work on a boat or volunteer programs. Pretty much any way to get out on a boat and under the water diving for cheap. I was directed to the CDC, Cairns Dive Centre, which does a training program for those youngsters low on cash but high on time. 46 days of working on their boats helping out with anything and everything that needs doing. Free diving just about everyday. They told me to expect to do at least 60 dives. A couple weeks of free dive courses so I can get adventure, advanced, rescue, dive master, and assistant instructor certified. Plus tons of learning and training working on a boat everyday. I don't get paid but doing all those dives and training on my own would come out to something like $7000AUD so I like to think its a pretty good deal for a couple months of work.

So I got myself all good and signed up. I've been at it a week and a half now and I am loving loving loving it. First a few more logistics about the CDC and my scheduling and whatnot. CDC sends boats out to the reef every single nonstop day so they schedule us TDC's, Trainee Dive Controller, 46 straight days and we can ask for and plead for and hope to get a few days off here and there. We have two boats doing dives everyday. The Sun-Kist is the smaller day boat that goes in and out of Cairns daily, and the Kangaroo Explorer, KE, is the bigger liveaboard overnight boat that stays out on the reef mostly. It refuels back in Cairns once a month but besides that stays offshore. Us TDC's get scheduled to work 5 days on one boat and then switch to the other plus spend some time over at the pool in Cairns where they do more dive training/certifying classes. When you work on the KE you sleep and eat and do everything out there so you don't see dry land for a week or so sometimes.

Ok I just took a break to watch the classy cold open of The Office with Jim in a tux and it was mostly the funniest thing evers. Anyways back to the action. So far I have spent most of my time on the KE with a few random days on the Sunkist thrown in. Working on the overnight boat is a nonstop always doing something sunup to sundown type of day while a day on the Sunkist has long periods of sitting around as we travel from Cairns to the Reef and back (1.5-2hr trip each way). You work 7am-5pm on the Sunkist and 5am-9pm on the KE. I much prefer working the KE. Here is a typical day on the KE (modeled after Jesse's brilliant Melbourne post).

5:05am O boy O boy it's early. The water has been pounding on the hull all night and the crew quarters are right on the other side of that hull wall. All night I have dreams that I am wading or sleeping in water. Water is everywhere in my dreams from the noise of the water outside. But the sun hasn't come up and we need to get to work.

5:15am Crew coffee and tea time. I go for the chocolate milk mostly. Take your CDC issued baseball cap and pull it as far down over your face as you can cuz it is no time to be social.

5:30am Wake up calls! I hate doing this. Wake up calls are the worst and making passengers get up at some ungodly hour is a bad way to start the day.

5:45am Wake up calls #2. Second round same as the first, only louder.

5:52am Setting up the dive deck for a day of diving. Set up the ladders and put down the deco bar. Fill up some tanks. Get divers all geared up

6:07am Dive Dive Dive! Us trainees are either on bow or back deck on lookout monitoring all divers and snorkelers and prepared to provide assistance in case of emergency. Or we are in diving with a dive class or dive group buddying up with the weak member of the herd or playing sheepdog in the back making sure no one in the class strays from the dive instructors shepherdly lead. Or we are in doing training dives such as navigation dives where we get dropped off a 20 minute swim from the dive boat and need to find our way back underwater. Or we are having a fun dive where us trainees can just go down and mess around and see what we can see without entertaining customers. All in all us trainees are doing lookout half the time and diving half the time. One in four of our dives are fun dives but mostly we are in the water performing some task or another.

7:03am Clean up after the dive. Get divers out of their gear. Fill up tanks fill up tanks fill up tanks. My hands were so raw for a week and now so calloused from filling an endless amount of tanks. So many nobs to turn and tight seals to seal and unseal. Set up all the gear for the next dive.

7:30am Shovel breakfast into my mouth. Pretty much eat as fast as I can because another dive starts at 8 and I need to start setting up for that one.

8:02am Dive Dive Dive! Same as the 6am dive. Sometimes diving. Sometimes lookout.

9:15am Fill tanks again after dive and clear dive deck so the boat can move to a new dive site. Help clear mooring lines so the boat can move. Start clearing gear of people who are leaving the boat that day and set up new gear for new passengers coming on board.

10am Maybe we get a solid 13 minutes to relax and grab a little chocolate milk.

10:29am Sunkist dayboat arrives with new passengers. We help all the new passengers on board and get them situated while simultaneously set up for the dive at 11

Alright I can continue on this line but it gets kind of repetitive at this point. There are dives at 6am, 8am, 11am, 1pm, 4pm, and a night dive whenever it gets dark enough. 6 dives a day and plenty of lookout time and diving opportunities with setting up and putting away gear in between. Throw in moving the boat twice a day plus three meals there isn't much time to relax. Thats ok though because I am learning a ton and having fun even if I don't get sleep or free time. As a trainee I am working from 5am to 9pm pretty much straight through. We do our best to hang out and be social from 9 to midnight but it gets tough to do that consistently on only 5 or 4 hours of sleep.

So thats what I am doing on the boat. I wish I had more time to relate stories and experiences but I am about to go out again on another 3 day stint at sea. Taylor and his brother Cam and Cam's gf Kati are here and they are going out on the liveaboard boat with me! I gotta go show them a good time. Taylor just got Open Water Certified today and the other two will be doing intro dives out on the boat. It will be awesome.