Day 152 Mon 09/10/2012
Nada
No pictures to go by or any notes in the log book about what happened today on our day off from sea. Most likely we sat at the lagoon and recovered from our double date night.
Day 153 Tue 09/11/2012
Whale of a Trip
“Whales today on out trip out to Thetford Reef. Alice got her picture taken with a reef shark today as well. I did my 100th dive today. Richie let me know weeks ago about the “naked 100th dive.”
At some point today I also took my best picture of a striped anemone fish hanging out in a green anemone. This is my favorite picture I’ve taken of marine life yet.”
This trip was full of excitement! It started with a whale breaching the surface off the port side of the boat. I was below deck working on the dive roster when I heard and felt Richie back off of the throttle. Whenever the skipper does this it means stop whatever you are doing and come to his attention because there is either a problem or something to see. I was glad to hear guests “Ooooing” and “Ahhhhing” as I came up from the gallery.
After tending to and snapping some photos with some sea sick guests we arrived at the reef. Our first dive site this trip was a new one for me, called Horseshoe due to formation of the reef in a big U shape. All of the divers including the crew were in awe of this site. We asked Richie why we didn’t come here more often. According to him the mooring here keeps you off of the reef only if the wind is consistently blowing from the north (I think). Even when you have the correct wind to moor up here if the direction changes slightly the boat will swing and hit reef.
When we were done with our dive here we saw why Richie didn’t like coming here very often. As we pulled up to take the slack off of the bow line we looked over and saw just how close we were to the reef. Richie knew what he was doing though, and we were glad we got to see another new spot with great coral and much marine life.
The dive at Horseshoe was my 99th dive. The entire last trip the girls were trying to figure out how many dives I had left until the famous NAKED DIVE 100. They were on me, and they had let Richie know the next dive was my 100th. They knew with the way Richie had been talking up the naked dives and seeing that the girls had both been in the water naked just two trips ago Richie would be all about getting my bare ass in the water.
Richie took over the deck of the boat and helped fill the tanks from the first dive while the girls and I geared up in full USA swagger and stepped off the boat into the water. They had the camera at the ready as I sank to the ocean floor here at 360, one of our favorite dive sites due to the 360 degrees of coral around the boat. My plan was to get to the bottom and ditch all my gear in order to drop my boardies and my now famous USA rashguard. Normally if you plan on diving naked you would just jump in naked like a champ. However, we do have paying customers on the boat and that seemed a little trashy. Other times one would just wear bottoms so all that has to happen to get naked during the dive is ditch your shorts.
I was being patriotic for the dive though so once I reached the ocean floor I had to get out of my shirt first. This meant temporarily taking my BCD completely off. For some reason I took my board shorts off first, and then proceeded to take off the BCD. Here is where it all started to go wrong. I am half naked, and the second I remove my BCD vest I begin to float to the surface. The weights are integrated into my vest, so the second I take off the vest I separate myself from the BCD, tank, and eventually my regulator. I start to float upside down towards the surface naked. The only thing keeping me connected to the gear is the regulator hose and regulator that is in my mouth. As soon as I float far enough away from my gear the hose gets taut and catches me, but the sudden tug on the mouth piece causes it to come completely off. I am left with the small plastic mouthpiece in my mouth connected to nothing. I have lost my air supply. I dash back towards my gear to grab ahold of something to breath from. I end up getting the regulator that is missing the mouth piece, because the mouth piece is now in my hand. After getting a few good breathes from the tank I get back into my BCD vest. This whole time the girls are laughing their asses off and Alice eventually came over to offer assistance with her octopus (secondary regulator) while I got my act back together.
After the gear removal fiasco I was in the water naked and safe. Richie kept telling me before the dive to go and find an anemone the second I got naked. Hah! Instead of violating Nemo's home we ate an apple, stole each other's air sources over and over, and there were even some piggy back rides while sharing air.
Amongst the silly naked pictures and us horsing around under water, I was able to take some of my best Nemo pictures today. While diving horseshoe we came across the largest green anemone with a striped anemone fish inside.
Day 154 Wed 09/12/2012
Sarah Free Diving
“Baby lionfish spotted today! Sarah had to practice her free diving today so we jumped in over at The Canyons and took turns touching one of the underwater buoys on the mooring line.”
Alice actually spotted the baby lionfish while leading our group of certified divers over at 360, where we spent the night last night. This little guy was hiding up under some coral. Good eye Alice. She casually pointed it out for me knowing I had the camera ready.
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| Sarah & I Free Diving |
Richie let Sarah and I back into the water after our dive to have some free diving fun. Rarely did we have time to go into the water and free dive, so I wasn't very good at it. The mooring ball we were targeting was not very deep below the surface. I want to say the large orange ball was somewhere between fifteen and twenty feet, which is not much deeper than swimming down to the bottom of the pool at the deep end. We should be able to swim down and back twice considering we were pretty much living in the ocean for work. We had a good time practicing. Sarah looked hilarious in her board shorts, long sleeve blue rash guard, and black hood. I would post a picture, but I remember how much she hated the few pictures I took of her.
Day 155 Thur 09/13/2012
Dude!
“Some shithead on this trip had me take tons of pics of him.”
Day 156 Fri 09/14/2012
Moore Reef
“$40 to have all of the pictures from this trip plus my best pics from the boat. So this guy goes through ALL of my pictures & tells me he will give me $5 for these 3 pics. 2 of him & my best Nemo picture. So I told him to piss off as I shutdown my laptop, put it away, and began to help the gals clean the boat. I was pissed. Thanks Marius! I even had taken pictures of him with his German flag underwater.
Sarah, Alice & I did our Blind Dive today. Talk about a scary feeling (being underwater and not being able to see). You must trust your buddy on this one. Super sketchy. Good times though.”
This trip due to some bad weather we were going to a different reef, called Moore Reef. We also had two gals on the boat, Weronica & Caroline, from SWITZERLAND who are having a trip to see if they would like to work on the boat. We had some fun divers on the trip as well.
Yea, so I take pictures of people to try and make beer money. Actually lately it has also been my eating money. I work with our customers all the time on prices. Most of the time no one tries to con me. It is $60-$100 per day to rent a camera back in Cairns. So multiply that by two for our 2 Day Reef Trip. I take pictures of you diving and everything cool we see PLUS all the pictures I've taken on other trips. $40 is a deal. This guy was all about some photos yesterday.
After our second dive of the last day the crew have to start by cleaning and stowing all of the dive gear. Once the boat gets close enough to Cairns we then clean below deck. All the beds must have fresh sheets, floors vacuumed, toilets cleaned, amongst other tasks. The girls have been nice enough to let me try and sell photos during this cleaning time IF there are customers who want pictures. This guy asks to see my photos because he wants to buy. Long story short, he looks through the entire album of everything I've taken and pics out three he likes and offers me $5. He got none!
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| Sarah (left) & Alice (right) Super Diver skills |
Have I explained the Super Diver Certification yet? Sarah, Alice, Tommy & I have created another level of diving certification. The Super Diver is someone who knows how to dive safely, but can do it in style. There are various skills involved with becoming a Super Diver. Some skills are so ridiculous that as far as I know none of the original four of us who created the cert have accomplished the entire checklist required. The Blind Fold dive is one of the skills. Today we attempted the blind fold dive. The girls took turns leading each other on the dive while blind folded.
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| Marius & a clown fish |
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| This is the towel Chloe gave me. I swear there is a picture of the two of us holding each towel in the trade, but I can't seem to find the picture. |
Marius, I had so much fun diving with ya bud, so if you read this and I haven't already sent you the pictures of your dive hit me up and you can have them. I have tons of you holding your German flag, but the USA flag looks much prettier than yours underwater. Just saying.
Another passenger, Chloe from Adelaide, traded towels with me, and I got the deal. The most ridiculous hair metal 80’s looking towel in Oz.
Day 157 Sat 09/15/2012
Nolan’s Wall
“More diving, lionfish, sharks & smoking HOT CHICKS! This is Sarah & Alice's last trip. :( Tanya, I think that's the name of the hot Dutch girl who was actually born in the USA.
Tonight while drinking XXXX on the reef Alice poured her a drink in Jason's famous Skull N Bones mug.”
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| Nolan's memorial on the mooring block at the dive site named after him. |
We never had a boring trip on the Rum Runner. If there was a rowdy group on the boat we might stay up drinking beers and whatever the group had brought on the boat. If this were the case I might not write anything in my book because I am too busy partying. If it was really out of control I wouldn't even have any pictures to figure out what happened on the trip.
Most of the time there were photos to help keep an accurate log book. From the photos alone on this trip I can write for ages. Weronica & Caroline were going out again with us this trip. Jase was helping train them in the kitchen while the rest of us showed them how to be a safe lookout and fill tanks between dives.
At our second dive site today Alice & I were given a special task. The dive site Nolan's Wall is named in memory of Jase's good friend who passed away back in early 2002. He had given Alice some direction on how to clean the small memorial he had placed down near the mooring block in his memory. We jumped in early to give ourselves a few minutes to go down and complete this task before the divers got in for the dive.
I have started to see a trend with the Dutch. The Dutch guys are awesome, and the Dutch gals are HOT. If I learned nothing in Australia I learned this.
I remember thinking on this trip how much the vibe will change when Sarah and Alice leave. There can be no replacement for these two. They are so easy to work with. They are funny, hard working, great divers, and they love to PARTY. Half of me thinks it will be a nice change to have some girls working with me that are... well, not as wild. I tell myself it will be OK having some normal, not so crazy, not so party-rock style girls on the boat. I am still sad to think this is their last trip.
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| Tanya the USA born Dutch gal |
Tanya, the Dutchie born USA, was game enough for the night dive tonight and was all game for wearing the 100% USA outfit. My USA top with one of the girls (Sarah or Alice's) bottoms. Amazing! After bringing everyone back to the boat after the night dive there was a party going on. Alice got to drink a XXXX Gold Beer out of Jase's pirate mug. She was so happy to do so. Evidently Jase doesn't like people drinking out of his mug. I can't remember if she asked permission or just did it. I am sure Jase would have let her if she asked, but she might have wanted to be cheeky and do it without permission. |
| Alice with Jase's mug, caught on camera! |
Day 158 Sun 09/16/2012
Stars N Bars SCUBA
“Tanya went full on USA on the dives today. Awesome! Not a chance, right?”
The stars and bars strike again. Tanya was full game for wearing my top with either Sarah or Alice’s bottoms. This outfit looks wicked under water, and the dynamic effect on my camera completes it. On a break between dives there was no one in the water. All of the snorkelers had come in and Tanya wanted to go chase some more fish, so the two of us jumped in at Hurricane Bay and swam over to the reef. I remember this swim being far from the boat. This is a great spot to swim and if you are into free diving the wall here is deep enough to test the best free diver. A novice can float along the top of the reef and be feet away from coral, and a more advanced diver can kick down to a depth of 50 or 60ft. We saw some fairly large fish too. A small group of wrasse swam under us at one point and we had a parrot fish come by and say “Hi”. |
| Pirate Face! |
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| Jasper |
Tonight we went to PJ’s Irish Pub for $5 pitchers. Tanya, Jasper, and another Dutchie, Pete, joined us. The girls (Sarah & Alice) were full on rage tonight, and with help from Tommy we were in for a big one. They show up with “Rum Runner” written across their butts and chest area. Super classy! Tommy had to have a hand in this somehow. There has been much talk about him getting “Rum Runner” or “Rummy” tattooed on his bum. The girls beat him to it, but their ink isn’t permanent. Still, PJ’s was rowdy. I think Pete got his nickname “Stinky Pete” tonight. Does this sound about right girls?
After taking some crazy “Shake and Take” photos we were off to Woolshed. As we walked by the kids playground that was between PJ Obrien’s and Woolshed Sarah quickly saved our lives by subduing the massive croc living between the swings and tubular slides. Good on ya, Sarah.
Once inside the Woolshed Sarah & Alice had to harass the bar tender they are in love with. Aaron, right? They made him take his shirt off (if it wasn’t already off) and had to have perv pics made with him. I would say poor guy, but nah. I thought one of his nipple rings was in jeopardy though. I wouldn’t trust either one of these girls with a piercing near them.
I feel like I have missed a CRUCIAL turning point in our Woolshed stories. The night we became VIP at the Woolshed. I am sure I can lookback on photos and see when this night happened, because there are pictures. For now, let’s just have a side story go HERE:
Vips at the woolshed
For weeks (months maybe) I have heard from Alice that Jase is VIP at the Woolshed, and any crew member on the Rum Runner can be cleared via Jase to become VIP as well. Alice always said if you work on the boat long enough and Jase likes you then he will put the order in for you to go get your VIP card. With this level of status in the Woolshed one is eligible for major discounts on food and DRINK here at the Woolshed. Also, one is able to walk past all the poor, smelly, hungry backpackers waiting in line for his or her free hostel meal. Yea, yea, I was fairly broke as well, and a few weeks ago Frank, Roel, all of our other good mates, and I were in this same line EVERY night for the free meal, but no longer.
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| Tommy & Sarah "Shake N take" |
We finally bugged Jase to make the call and get us on the list. We had a hard time at first getting with the manager who can grant VIP cards. When we finally caught him working and not completely slammed with patrons he took us into his office and began the VIP card process. Alice and Sarah got their cards created first. The manager (what’s his name girls?) essentially pulled up Facebook and grabbed a photo to put on the VIP ID card. So while the girls cards were printing I bounced back over to the bar to grab another round. As I came back into the office the girls were giggling with mischief. My card was ready too. How? I hadn’t chosen my picture for the card yet. The girls took care of this step for me.
Picture of my VIP card
Actually this was a perfect picture of the 3 of us. Good job girls. Hahahaha!
I think the Rum Runner crew is the only boat that refuses to wear the Crew shirts out to the bars. All other boats will go out together wearing their Crew polo’s. Maybe this is because our Crew polos are dirty as hell after a trip, but regardless we think it is lame to sport the “I am Crew on a boat here in Cairns” shirt. It’s not that we aren’t proud to be Crew on the Rum Runner. However, all the other mainstream and big name companies and boats think we are rag tag and a bunch of vagabonds. The Rummy is privately owned, so they do what they want to. Richie and Jase run the boat how they feel. It makes the Rum Runner the boat to work for if you ask me. Ask Masa, Mike, Sarah, Alice, Jasmina, or any other crew member and they will tell you the same.
The crew from other boats, like ProDive, will go out in a pack all wearing their CREW polo’s. They pick up girls with the shirt. (Yea, I know, I wear my Rum Runner shirt to work once a week now that I am back in the States, and often out on the town almost every time.) So I would say Alice, Sarah & I like to make fun of these guys.
There is a catch 22 involved with the whole “Crew” concept if you ask me. Skippers, dive instructors, dive masters, deckies (deckhands), and other crew have a reputation. Girls are told “Oh, he is a diving instructor, stay away.” Then again, girls will come up to crew and say “Oh my gosh, you work on a boat?” Sarah and Alice would grab an unsuspecting girl in the Woolshed and pull the “Have ya met Ted?” bit from How I Met Your Mother. Well they would say, “Have you met Michael? He is a diving instructor.” This always led to conversation and never to a slap in the face.
However, Sarah came out of the restroom one night in the Woolshed and said, “There was a girl in there crying about this guy cheating on her or how she caught him at the bar kissing another girl. Her friend was in there comforting her saying, “Yea, well you knew he was a dive master!” “
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| Tanya & I |
Sarah was offended and said, “I am a dive master. What if that hurts my feelings?” So my point, wearing your crew shirt out could have benefits and/or drawbacks. We did wear our crew shirts out one night, and we walked up to every person in the bar and made it a point to introduce ourselves as CREW ON A BOAT HERE IN CAIRNS. When we were asked what boat, we said ProDive and walked away. LOLOL! Sorry Jasmina, but we acted like complete turds and said we worked for ProDive (Jas worked on the Rummy and other trips on the ProDive boats). OK, enough of this confusing and long story that probably didn’t fit here at all. All CREW reading this will completely follow though. Hahaha, hopefully I wrote down in the log somewhere when Tommy got his Woolshed VIP card. Funny story!
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| Alice, Pete, Sarah, & Tanya |
Oh hell, it all floods back now. Tonight at the Woolshed is the night I met Bart. I wonder off to the toilet between beers. The girls are more than likely ordering another round of shots. There is another party animal there near me and for some reason we start exchanging words that most likely consisted of “Hell yea we are in Cairns PARTY.” This guy asks me the usual “Where are you from? Why are you in Cairns?” This and that. When he hears I work on one of the dive boats (maybe this line works on dudes) he is thrilled and screams back at me “I AM ALSO A DIVAH (diver in Dutch accent)!” Hahaha, another Dutchie! Bart is his name. I tell him to meet me in the restroom due to the loud music and screaming drunks. He might recall this better than I, but I am pretty sure we were both beer’d up. I told him to call me in the morning because we were looking for replacements for Sarah and Alice.
Day 159 Mon 09/17/2012
Lagoon
Sarah & Alice are going to stay on the boat a few more nights, because for some reason we don’t have a trip tomorrow. We hung out at the lagoon today and recovered from another hellraiser of a night.
Day 160 Tue 09/18/2012
Sev & Friends
There is no trip today. I think we went out for Mad Monday’s with the Asylum Backpackers hostel last night. Oh man, there are photos of us hanging out with Sev, Sarah’s friend and travelling mate formerly in Australia. Tanya came out with us again as well. According to these photos Sarah drank a ton of Smirfnoff Ice’s. Hahaha. Oh, I know! This is the night we went and met Sev and his mates at Pier Bar. They all work on cray boats (crayfish). They might be rowdier than we are. They have been on the water too long I guess. We went to (the biggest hostel in Cairns) and they were having some dressup event for medical school students. Shit, I am really struggling on this one. Some drunk chick was really digging my broke dive master gig, but we ran out of there realizing we didn’t belong. Sev bought so many rounds of shots that even after going so big last night and wanting a night off Sarah, Alice & I had no choice but to go big again. My Mom would be so proud. Sorry Mom.
Day 161 Wed 09/19/2012
Week Off
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| I'm going to miss these two! |
The trip off tomorrow is also off. No wonder I have no notes. We must have stayed on the piss for a week. Shit! Alice has a birthday in here somewhere and she is leaving soon. Richie has a German girl coming out on our next trip to have a go at the hostie and new dive master in training position. This could be trouble. German girls in Oz really dislike me for some reason. Bart has also taken initiative and got ahold of Richie for a test run this same trip. I am pumped. Bart is hilarious, and he can throw down like a champion. Hopefully he can dive, hahahaha!
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