Working on a dive boat in the Great Barrier Reef

Reef Encounter
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For just once, I would like Anne to experience a violent bout of seasickness. You don’t know how much I hate laying on the floor, ready to spill my lunch contents on to my shirt, watching her laugh as if she was at a comedy club. She really finds it amusing. Multiply this by seven days, and you have our latest adventure.

On December 20^th, we boarded the Reef Encounter dive boat, 28 miles out at sea. This would be our home for the next 6 nights/7days. Capable of staying at sea for over 9 weeks, this ship is a twin hull building. It holds over 28,000 litres of fuel (divide by 3.8 for gallons), 504 kilowatts of power per engine (not sure for the horsepower conversion, but I’m sure it’s a lot), has its own desalinisation unit and fresh water storage of 50,000 litres, a top-deck helipad, and also has a compressor to fill scuba tanks. Even more impressive is that our initial skipper/chief engineer (they rotate between two) was only 27 years old making me feel like such an underachiever.

It was an unusual x-mas to say the least

Christmas Eve. During our 3 minutes of free time.
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Here’s the deal. You are a paying customer for one night, and then allowed to be a “hostie” for as many additional nights as you want. In return for being a hostie, you get your meals, accommodation, and diving for free. This is an unpaid position, so we figured that it wouldn’t be too bad and that the work would be limited to a few hours a day. WRONG ANSWER! This is a thankless and humbling position that compares equally to Corporate America. We both did hours of dishwashing, housekeeping duties, guest relations activities, and other slave type labour. You can add the housekeeping career to the list of positions that I wish to never explore any further. Cleaning toilets, and the pubic hairs that surround them, should be left for Lucifer or anyone in corporate middle management. It was disgusting.

Frank. He can become "Franky" if he wants to.
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During our week stay, several of the staff were rotated on or off the boat so that they never had to stay more than 5 nights out at sea. On our second day, we said our goodbyes to the friendly chef. His soon-to-be replacement was a 25 year retired naval chef who preferred things in a more orderly and neat fashion. He entered the kitchen and immediately started swearing and throwing pots and pans like he was an unnurtured three year old. This was to show his displeasure with how we had been keeping his kitchen in an unruly manner. We didn’t exactly get off on the right foot either. When we first met, I asked “are you the new cook?” His undelayed response was “I’M THE NEW CHEF!” The following morning (Christmas Eve) was worse than the night before. I entered the kitchen alone and he didn’t waste any time scolding me about the dishwasher. “You have to F’n clean this thing out every night and take the F’n grates out and drain the god da!% sump, if you don’t, it F’n stinks up the whole F’n kitchen!”. This went on for about 5 minutes without me saying any words and him ending in some delusional state. When he was done, I simply said good morning, turned my back and walked out of the kitchen. As I was turning around, the dumbfounded expression on his face was worth more than any other x-mas present that I have ever received. His demeanor changed from that moment. He regarded me as “Champ” from there on and every request was with a please and a thank you. He took a special liking to Anne as well. The comparisons with the Grinch cartoon are too overwhelming for me to compare, but our time became more enjoyable after his earlier tantrums.

One of the diesel engines
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We’ve been told by others that the diving on the Great Barrier Reef was average with mediocre visibility and less than average color. I guess I agree. We have done a lot of diving lately and I feel that GBR was not bad, but not great either. At times I felt it was more amusing to watch Anne scare the X-mas tree worms back into their hole with a flick of her fingers than to stare at the lack of color. We did see numerous sharks, a large octopus and a resident Napolean Maori Wrasse named Frank. An extremely odd looking fish, the Maori Wrasse has the ability to change sexes if the need arises. Frank enjoyed being photographed and welcomed people swimming up to him to be petted.

Giant Clam
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It was an unusual x-mas to say the least, but will not be forgotten. Being 28 miles out to sea on the Great Barrier Reef will be one of the memories that will always remain.

bkh  (now here's Anne side of the story)

It's true - I do find Brian's seasickness somewhat amusing.  To me, the big rolling waves are lots of fun like a ride at Valleyfair.  The unfortunate thing is that we've been off the boat nearly 24 hours and I still feel like I'm out to sea.  It's even difficult to walk down the street as I haven't regained my sense of balance.

X-mas tree worm
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The hostie experience was good, bad, fun, horrible, heaven, and hell all at once.  I'm glad we stuck it out for 6 days, but if was any longer I'd probably have swam the 28 miles back to shore.  We nearly quit after our first day, but were saved by a young Norweigan girl named Camilla.  Not only was she a hard worker, but she was a lot of fun and we had many laughs with her.  The chef was truly like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, and I was like Cindy-Lou Who.  He was so mean that he even made me cry on Christmas Eve morning, but by the time I left the boat, we were best pals and he gave me a big hug.  He may have been a bit "abrasive", but that man could cook!  Every meal was a feast, and I made sure to eat as much as I could since food was essentially my paycheck.  We had roast lamb, veal with ham and cheese sauce, roast turkey, steak with peppercorn and blue cheese sauce, fish and chips, fantastic salads, tropical fruit trays, prawns, fresh oysters, salmon, and that doesn't even cover breakfast.   To my excitement, every night there was fresh homemade dessert - pavlova (an Aussie favorite), rhubarb apple crumble with ice cream and custard, chocolate mud cake, and an apple/sour cream slice (the chef's mom's secret recipe).

Sea cucumber
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I think Brian and I could write an entire book on this latest adventure, we met many interesting people, saw many things, and had many new experiences.

Anne