Different boats, new adventures!

Hello friends!!

So things on the boat have been a-changing lately! Reef Experience, lovingly called Rex for short, has been my home away from home for the last four months and change. Rex got pulled out of the water about a week ago for some much needed love. She's up in the dry docks getting all new insides. The saloon is getting completely re-done, including a new floor and everything.

In the meantime, we're just running our other boat, Compass. Compass is the cheaper boat, aimed at backpackers and low-budget travelers. It's a slow single-hull boat, taking about two and a half hours to get out to the reef, compared to Rex's hour and a half. BUT Compass is a hell of a lot of fun. It's a different crowd, a lot more chill and relaxed. I started working on Compass this week and it's taken a bit of getting used to, since its a whole new boat that I've barely worked on with whole new quirks. But this boat has really grown on me. It's a nice relaxed time with less passengers than Rex, so I've had a lot of time to hop in for some snorkels and dives. Even took a couple of pictures the other day!

We've had beautiful clear water lately... the weather has been AMAZING. Hopefully it keeps holding! 

This is Frank. He's our local Maori wrasse... it's hard to tell in this picture, but he's about 4 and a half feet long. Frank doesn't like being photographed, so he's rather hard to chase down. But he's awesome. 

Backtracking just a pinch... as I said, Rex is on refit, which I get to help out with! Something that's completely outside my comfort zone, for sure... I went out and bought the tiniest steel-cap boots I could possibly find. A size 3 in men's thank you. I felt rather silly. I've only done one day so far, but it was pretty cool! The floor of the saloon is gone, which exposes the engine room and the hulls and all kinds of other things I've never really seen. I'm not very good at this taking Rex apart, but I'm looking forward to putting her back together again!

Oh, one other rather entertaining anecdote that happened today.... our glass bottom boat lives out on the reef permanently. We pick it up at the reef, use it for the tours during the day and then it stays on the reef until the following day when it all happens again. It's a small boat, only maybe 15 or 20 feet long. Now, the reef that the glass bottom boat lives on is rather remote. There's nothing around for miles and miles. This means the glassy is a very popular perch for sea birds. Sea birds poop. Therefore, our glassy is constantly covered in bird poop and it's a pain to clean every day... it can be time consuming depending on how many birds were around, and its just downright gross. Our captain came up with a plan a few days ago and went out and bought some of those fake owls that they use to scare birds on land. The only problem is these birds that are causing our problems are SEAbirds. Birds that almost never go to the mainland, except maybe to breed. They've never ever seen an owl!! They have no idea that it's supposed to be scary! We'll see if it works, but my money's on NOPE! The boat does look pretty silly with two big plastic owls on top of it though! 

That's about all that's new and exciting for now! Sending lots of love back home! 

Love and fishes! 

Whales and cuttlefish and power tools, oh my!

Alright, so firstly a big sloppy apology for my lack of posts. This is due to a handful of reasons.

1. Nothing super fun and exciting and out of the ordinary was happening UNTIL
2. My internet died again.
3. Now, I would love to have gone to an internet cafe and write a post, BUT
4. I've been working almost every day of the last two weeks due to Easter holidays.

Basically the day I was going to post something cool and exciting, the internet died and it has just now been resurrected. I blame the kangaroos. Or the wombats.

So I do have quite a bit to update on... firstly WHALES.

Last week, it was a totally normal, average day at work. About 80 people on the boat, light winds, pretty good visibility. One of my co-workers and I were standing on the snorkel platform gearing up people and getting them in the water. I saw a big splash out of the corner of my eye. Now, this is not unusual, there are lots of shallow bits of coral around, and waves break over top of them all the time. But then I saw a big fin come out of the splash!

Initially we thought it was a huge school of dolphins, but then we realized they were huge and black, which can mean only one thing! Pilot whales!

They look pretty similar to dolphins, but they're much larger and black. But these guys were amazing. They were maybe 50 meters from the boat at the closest and they were jumping and diving and breaching. Our passengers were slightly intrigued, whereas the crew were standing on the deck, mask and fins in hand, ready to jump in if they got any closer. In total there were probably close to fifty whales, including some babies! Throughout the day, we would hear them occasionally in the water, which meant they hadn't gone far, but we didn't see them again after the morning. 

A few days ago, I had another really fun animal encounter. It was a really chill day on the boat, only 30 passengers, so I was able to jump in for a quick fun dive. I found this awesome cuttlefish, which are one of my favorite critters for sure. They're really smart and you can tell when you look at them that they're really thinking about things. They change color and pattern really quickly, giving them some amazing camouflage. But I chased this guy around for the better part of my 20 minute dive, watching him change colors and get more comfortable around be and letting me get closer and closer and closer. Cuttlefish are AWESOME. 

So now, things on the boat are going to start changing a lot... we're pulling out Reef Experience (my boat) for refit. She's going to be all nice and shiny... getting new floors, new chairs, a whole new interior. The boat's going to be out of the water for at least 6 weeks. During that time we'll still be running Compass, which is our company's other boat. I know I'll definitely be helping out with refit things, which means I need to go buy steel-toed boots... what? But it'll be interesting to see the boat come out of the water and get to have a hand in some of the work. Chances are I'll also be working on Compass a little bit. I'm not entirely sure how its all going to go just yet, but Rex comes out of the water on Tuesday, so I'll be able to let you know soon! 

Now, I pinky pinky swear it will not be so long until my next post. I'm sure I'll have some interested stories to tell about me in steel-toed boots with power tools. 

Love and fishes!