Fun with tourists...

Hey all!

Sorry I've been missing in action lately... I've been having a lot of technological problems with my internet! Technology doesn't like me much.

Life down under is still going swimmingly! The boats have been very busy for the last two weeks because of Chinese New Year. The actual new year was about a week and a half ago now, but its a pretty long holiday season. Since China's really not that far from Australia in the global scheme of things, we've had an influx of tourists the last couple of weeks.


Luckily we have a couple of Chinese translators working on the boat, otherwise we'd all be in trouble. Between the lot of us, most people know a little of one language or another, which comes in handy for translating tourist problems.

We have heaps of people that come to the boat with no idea what snorkeling is, let alone what a coral reef is. This is one of my favorite exchanges on the boat:

Do you know how to swim?? (with appropriate swimming charades)
-Nods
Are you suuuuuure?
-Nods
Okay then, in you go... head that way toward the reef.
-Drowns.

In the last few weeks I've done so many snorkel rescues... there was one day when I didn't take my fins off for a good thirty minutes because I kept having to hop in and rescue something... people, noodles, cameras, hats....

At the end of the day, we have passengers fill out comment cards about how their day was. One of my favorites, word for word:

-You should have warned us about the saltwater. 

Some other fun comment cards I've seen recently:

-The one in the blue shirt was smart (we're all in blue shirts...)
-Why aren't there more seahorses? 
-There should be some shade on the sundeck (Ahem... its the SUNdeck...)

Some days we have really good bunches of tourists. It was easy a few days ago... we had a group of 60 American college students on a study abroad program. There was a joke on the boat that if anyone had trouble, I was the American translator. Other days we have 50 people out of 100 on the boat that speak no English and don't know how to swim and put all their masks on upside down. Ohhhh boy. We all end up at the pub on the end of those days because after 10 hours of that, you NEED a drink.

But it all keeps things entertaining and you've got something to laugh about at the pub at the end of the day. Life is good on the boat and in Cairns. I realized the other day that I've been here 3 months already. I feel like I've been living here forever! Life is good!

I promise I won't be so long with another post! I'll get my internet fixed sooner, haha!


Love and fishes.  

Cyclones, Australia Day and bungee jumping! Oh my!

Well, I can honestly say that life in Australia is never boring...

Last week we got blown around a little bit by a cyclone with the most unfortunate name ever. Oswald. Cyclone Oswald cruised down the coast of Australia, giving us some nasty winds and rain, but not much else. It was enough wind and rain to keep the boat off the reef for three days though! Three days off of work! Too bad it was raining and windy and gross!

Now in Cairns, we got pretty lucky. Pretty minimal damage. Areas further south got nailed by rain and flooding and they're still having trouble as far as I understand.

So the day that the boat finally got back up and running was a very popular holiday around these parts... namely Australia Day! Pretty similar holiday to the 4th of July... lots of beers, BBQs and red white and blues. Although a slightly different flag. The only thing missing are fireworks!

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! 

So at work, we were all decked out in Australia flag fake tattoos, flags, I even made breakfast in an Australia flag apron. We had an awesome day out on the reef, good times for all. After work we had a BBQ at one of the crew's house, had some beers and said a lot of Australian things. The majority of the people I work with aren't Aussies... we're from all over the world (Canada and England mostly... but also France, New Zealand, other miscellaneous parts of Europe, Taiwan) , so it's fun when we're all pretending to be Australian! 

I had a few days off earlier this week... the first day I was super productive and got everything done, ran a bunch of errands. The next day I had nothing to do... soooooo I went bungee jumping!!! Yayyyy! It was awesome. So much fun, but so freaking intimidating!!! I was definitely more afraid on the top of the bungee tower than I was skydiving. I'm definitely going to go again... now I've got a frequent jumpers card :)

Other than that, just living it up in the insane Cairns heat... It's been near 100 F (38C) for the last week! It's been so bloody hot!!! I'm so glad I work on a boat most of the time and can just jump in the water whenever I feel like it! It's been beautiful on the water though... all the heat and the lack of wind has just made it super glassy out on the reef. It's amazingggggg! Everyone should come visit :) 

Love and fishes!