Day 108 Sat 07/28/2012
Rum Runner Cairns
“Today Frank, Roel & I go out on the Rum Runner for a dive trip. Awesome time. Met super cute Natalie G from England. The trip was so much fun. Mike was the DM (Dive Master) from Philly, NJ. There are so many stories from this boat. No way to write them…”
Now I get to try and write about this first trip out on the Rum Runner Cairns live aboard dive boat. The travel agent in town has matched the three of us with this boat because according to her this is the boat to go on with a backpacker budget and the desire to see the Great Barrier Reef on an overnight trip. She could not have been any closer to the truth.
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| Privately Owned & Operated Rum Runner Cairns on the Great Barrier Reef |
We have instructions to make our way down to the E-Finger of Marlin Marina first thing in the morning. The Rummy is an older vessel classified as a motor/sail boat. Some of the crew was on the deck filling tanks and sizing people up with gear. We are asked to remove our shoes and carry them onboard. The crew today consisted of a Dive Master, Mike from Jersey, two DMs in training, Sarah from Wales and Alice from England, and two skippers were onboard at the moment, Richie and Jason. Sarah and Mike were on deck getting people geared up. Mike was stoked I had my own gear, so all he did was assign me a tank slot.
After Frank and Roel were fitted for fins and assigned a spot for gear we were told to watch our heads as we BACKED down the steps to get below deck. The skippers were very adamant about making sure we backed down the steps for safety reasons. Below we paid Richie our fees and filled out waivers and diving information.
When the paperwork and payments were done all sixteen passengers were told to have a seat upstairs in the cockpit area or on the deck so the crew could launch the boat. As soon as the boat had left the Marina Mike instructed everyone “to the bow of the boat. That’s the pointy end.” Here he gave the safety briefing. He welcomed us all to the Rum Runner and introduced the crew. It went something like this:
“Good morning, and welcome to THE RUM RUNNER!” Mike didn’t like our enthusiasm and suggests we wake up and do it again. “GOOD morning, and WELCOME TO THE RUM RUNNER!” We all cheer.
“I’d like to introduce the crew to you. My name is Mike and I am the dive master on the boat. Sarah over here is one of our dive masters in training,” Sarah gives a very awkward wave and a HELLO with a smile. Alice pops up from below deck. “Here is the most important person on the boat. This is Alice and she is our hostie. Do not make her mad or we will all starve. Back here driving the boat is Richie. Everybody say HEEEEY RICHIEEE.” We all turn back and wave to Richie, who returns the wave with very little enthusiasm and the look on his face that says “Jeez, Mike, why do you do this to me every trip?” |
| The Rum Runner Cairns in her slip at the Marlin Marina in Cairns, QLD |
“Does anyone get sea sick?” No one raises their hand. “Well just in case we have any liars if you think you are going to get sea sick do NOT go downstairs. This will make you feel worse. Stay on the deck and look out on a fixed point over the horizon. If you can see land then focus on that. If not then look out to sea and focus on the horizon. Also stay away from the back of the boat because the diesel fumes can make you feel nauseous as well. If you are going to get sick… lick your finger… check the wind… and go to the opposite side of the boat. Right now that would mean go to the port side of the boat over there and you can feed the fish. You will not make new friends if you come up here to get sick, because the wind will most likely cause you to cover your new neighbors.
Sunscreen… wear it. We have sunscreen over in the cockpit area. Lather up with it. Ladies if you need help with your backs just let me know. Guys, you are on your own, but we do not want any lobsters running around on the deck. Do not think you can put sunscreen on 5 minutes before getting into the water. It will wash off and you will get burned. Also, the sunscreen kills the reef. Put it on an hour before we get to the reef. So you have about 2 hours to do this.
I’m sure you already heard the skipper say to back down the stairs when going below deck. Those stairs are dangerous. People have fallen and hurt themselves going down those steps and once we are out on the reef it is a long way to a hospital. When you hear the dinner bell don’t fly down those stairs. Use both hands to hang on while backing down.
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| Dive Master Mike & the Rum Runner |
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| Dive Master in Training, Sarah (from Wales) filling tanks |
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| Other DMT, Alice (from Brighton, ENG) our hostie this trip |
Mike takes back over. “If you see someone fall overboard you point to this person like so, do not take your eyes of him or her, and you yell over and over until someone acknowledges you MAN OVER BOARD, MAN OVERBOARD! Do not take your eyes off of this person because it can be easy to lose sight of them with swells in the ocean. Continue to point there location out so the skipper can swing the boat around and pick up the man overboard.”
“Who knows what the most important thing on the boat is?” The general answer from the crowd is “The skipper!”
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| Our Aussie Skipper, Richie |
“No,” Mike replies. ”The skipper is NOT the most important thing on the boat. The toilets are the most important. I love talking about toilets too. There are two toilets downstairs. Everything you flush down the toilet has to fit through a hole THIS big.” Mike makes a small hole to peak through with his hand. “They clog very easily. Only THREE things go into the toilets. We call them the 3 P’s. Who can guess them?” No one wants to guess. “Pee!” Mike yells.
“Poo,” Sarah chimes in.
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| Roel at the helm of the rummy |
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| Roel & Frank |
Showers are also in the toilet area. We have to conserve our water supply. So let’s try and limit your showers to one per day. We are in and out of the water constantly. Girls if you think you can shower after every dive you are wrong. We will run out of water. If we run out of water the trip is over. So one shower per day and keep it to 2 minutes. If you are really dirty or just want a longer shower then take a friend in there with you to get a 4 minute shower. Grab Sarah as well and the three of you can have a 6 minute shower. You get the idea. If you can get the skipper in there with you then he will tell you when your time is up. We did have two German guys take a 4 minute shower a few trips ago. We dunno what that was about. No one saw them go in. we just saw them come out together. ????” Look of confusion.
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| Dive Deck - 8 stalls per side |
“We have drinks for sale too. Drink lots of water. Diving is very dehydrating. The air from the tanks is very dry. Drink lots of water. The sun and swimming will dehydrate you. Drink lots of water. The water out of the sink is drinkable. The crew drinks this water. It is free. Just get a blue cup and have at it. We have bottled water and soft drinks for sale. Also, we have beer and wine for sale. Please hold off on the booze until after your last dive tonight. If you want to get on the sauce earlier you can, but you will not be allowed back in the water until the morning. We have a clipboard down in the kitchen where you can make a little tally next to your name for every drink you take. We work on the honor system. We will take payment at the end of the trip.”
After Mike had finished the safety talk he asked the certified divers to stay up at the bow of the boat with him for the diver briefing. The snorkelers and introductory divers would report back to Richie in the cockpit for a short briefing as well. In our diver briefing Mike first asked about everyone’s level of certification and how long it had been since they had been diving. He let us know about the maximum depths we were allowed to dive by law. Open Water Divers are certified to dive to 18m (60ft) and Advanced Open Water Divers are certified to 30m (100ft). He informed us there is nothing to see this deep on most of the dive sites we were going to. The reef is usually a few feet below the surface. Sometimes we would reach depths of 15m or so. If any advanced divers wanted to get some extra depth he suggested they buddy up and go for a buddy dive together. Mike would not likely be leading any dives deeper than the 18m depth.
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| Frank on deck |
The Rum Runner enforced the buddy diving system. Even if we were going as a group together we would be paired with a buddy for every dive. If pre-planned divers are allowed to buddy up and not follow the group. Mike reminded us of the Lost Buddy Procedure and went over all the essential hand signals
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| Roel overlooking the Southern Pacific |
After quizzing us on a few signals he explained the method of gearing up to get ready for a dive. He did not want to see anyone walking around on the deck of the boat with fins on. He explained months earlier he had been hurt doing just this. Everyone had geared up and was ready to dive. One person had an issue. Mike needed to get something for this person just up on the deck a few feet from his station. Mike was fully geared as well. He managed to get up on the deck to retrieve whatever he was after, and on his way down his fin was caught under a small railing bar. This fall tore his ACL. The boat was out in the ocean.
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| Mike at the helm |
Mike was very adamate about making sure no one ran around on the deck with fins on. We were told about the bungee cords that keep our tanks from flying around all over the deck as well. He said to not take off your bungee cord until you are ready to put your BCD and tank on. He next showed us the inflatable safety sausage in our BCD in case we popped up away from the boat and needed a pickup. This orange inflatable sausage would be a good signaling device in case we were out of sight of the lookout on deck.
To enter the water Mike gave us a quick show on how to take a giant stride into the water with a hand on our mask and regulator and the other hand on our weight belt. We were reminded to not touch anything underwater as well. If it looks pretty it is probably dangerous. We talked about our safety stop and getting back on the boat last. His briefing was full of life, unlike this write-up on the briefing. He talked with his hands and I thought a few times he was about to start a fire clapping and rubbing his hands together. He was very funny.
“When we get back on the boat I need you guys to go straight back to your tank stall and get this gear off. It’s too easy to get hurt walking around on the deck with this heavy tank on. This means when Casper here,” Mike leans in to Casper from Europe. “When Casper wants to tell you about the HUGE turtle he just saw we need to remind him to tell stories after we get out of our gear. Then we can talk all about the crazy fun stuff we saw. Deal?
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| Thetford Reef on the Great Barrier Reef from aboard the Rum Runner Cairns |
He had a good point and at the same time we all thought of the turtle from Finding Nemo, because Mike was talking just like him for this section of the briefing. These two briefing took less than 10 minutes, and Mike had the whole boat at his command. The ladies laughed at everything he said. Even the stuff that wasn’t funny. Most everything that came out of Mike’s mouth was funny though, and we were all excited to have him show us the Great Barrier Reef.
I forget what else might have been talked about during these briefings. Mike was very animated and he had every gals full attention on deck. We had about three hours before getting to the reef to mingle with the crew and other passengers.
After our briefings we were allowed to explore the boat some. We were told to stay above deck if there was even a chance of getting sea sick. I’ll give some details about the boat. The Rum Runner is a 20m Motor Sailing Schooner built in 1984. It is a tank with its nearly indestructible fiberglass hull and enough room below deck to accommodate 16 guests. Below deck the boat is not much to look at. It is very basic with little decoration other than dive related pictures on a sponge board over the lounge. There is just enough room in the bunks for one person comfortably. However, the only time spent in my room was to sleep. It is the perfect dive boat.
Alice was busy in the gallery preparing our lunch. She had already prepped a tea and coffee station for us with raisin toast to tide us over before our other morning snack. Within an hour of leaving Marlin Marina she was bringing up trays of toasted sandwiches. Our entire boat was backpackers and most were same as Frank, Roel & I. We had not had someone serving us food like this in a while. The passengers that were not feeling sea sick got to eat a seemingly unlimited amount of toasted tomato and cheese sangers. I stuffed my face while talking with Sarah. Her Wales accent was hilarious.
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| Richie & Mike "Working" |
The crew had run the sail the mast, but even with the wind in the sail and full motor we weren’t really moving fast. We sailed past Fitzroy Island off the coast of Cairns towards the Great Barrier Reef. I had told Mike I had a GoPro and if there were any poles on the boat I could use I would like to borrow one to mount my camera on. He hooked me up with one so Frank, Roel & I could get some group pictures of us heading out to sea together.
Sarah and Mike handed out wetsuits once we got within hour away from the GBR. We were told not to try and put them on while the boat was under sail, but some people couldn’t help but get in due to excitement. I remember Mike being pretty stoked I had my own gear. When the reef was in site our skipper, Richie, gave the command to drop the sail and get ready to moor up to a mooring ball located near our first dive site, named Mystery. We were on the Thetford Reef located approx 40km from Cairns. It took us about three hours to get here. Once near the reef it was the skipper’s job to find the first mooring ball where we were to anchor the boat.
Mooring lines have been previously installed out here on the reef as part of the reef conservation project. Without these mooring lines boats would need to drop an anchor down in order to visit the reef. Anchors will damage the reef if they are not very carefully placed. Companies will pay a fee in order to use these mooring lines. The money from the fees help maintain the lines to ensure any damaged lines are replaced to help preserve the reef.
Time to go DIVING...
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| Roel is "King of the World" |
A mooring line begins usually with a huge concrete block being placed on the ocean floor somewhere near the reef. This concrete block will have a large u-bolt in the top center where a rope is installed. The rope will be long enough to reach the surface and have enough tail or slack (probably not the correct nautical terms) on it to compensate for swells and current. At the end of the rope there is a loop, and in this loop there will be anything from a buoy, plastic ball, milk jug, piece of foam, or something that will float the rope at the surface. The idea is to be able to spot the buoy from a distance and use the loop on the rope to run a rope of your own through to secure yourself to the ocean floor.
The crew went to the front of the boat with the long gaff used for picking up the floating mooring ball and used the gaff as a directional indicator to show the skipper where the target was once it was too close for him to see from the stern of the boat where the helm was. The crew was pointing the mooring ball out while giving distances to target.
“FIVE METERS! TWO METERS!” At the same time give a hand signals were shot back to the stern from the bow in case there was too much engine or wind noise. At two meters Richie reversed the thrust of the engine while Mike gaffed the mooring ball and hauled it up for Alice or Sarah to grab. Mike dropped the gaff and picked up the rope on the deck of the boat to run it through the pre-existing loop on the mooring rope. Once the rope on the deck is through the mooring rope it is tossed back into the water while he quickly must tie the other end of his rope off in order to secure the boat.
This is done at every dive site. I must say the vibe on the boat was relaxed and easy going most all of the time, but when the crew was dealing with this procedure of securing the vessel to the mooring lines there was so messing around. People got yelled at. If you happened to be standing in the way you were usually kindly asked to move or sit down so the skipper could see. I gotta be honest I have no idea how Richie saw the mooring ball to begin with. As far as I could tell he was not using any GPS to find anything. I think he has been here a few times though.
Richie called everyone to the bow of the boat topside for a short briefing while the other three members of the crew went to the stern to lower the tender or dingy into the water and lower the dive platform.
Time to go DIVING...
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