I work on a dive boat!

that's right. the princess is forming calluses galore whilst working on a dive boat in the middle of the great barrier reef. I moore up the boat, i fill dive tanks, i set up dive decks, i pull ropes, i tie knots, and every now and then i dive. i'm so tough!

yesterday i dove with this guy Buggy, and we had the most amazing dive of life. well, i did. he was off poisoning crown-of-thorn sea stars so they'd die (they eat the reef, they kind of suck, so we kill them) but i just dove and it was a beautiful reef. I got pretty close to a White Tip Reef Shark before he swam off. People keep seeing a manta ray, but i'm never in the water for that. always on guard. oh well.

diving here is amazing. so different than florida and hawaii. unfortunately i can't dive as much as i'd like to because there's too much work to be done. oh well.

i'm hosting a Halloween party on friday on the liveaboard boat, the Kangaroo Explorer. Everyone's getting costumes and we're going to have a dance party on the sun deck! I love halloween. all the girls (all 3 of us) are going to be pirates! argh!

There are two boats that i switch back and forth between, the KE, and the Sunkist. Sunkist is a day-trip boat and it's back and forth every day. The trip out from cairns to the reef is literally a 2 hour ride. and i always feel vomitous for 3/4 of the trip. Why on earth would someone who gets seasick decide to work on a boat? got me.

Yesterday we had a rescue drill. this guy dennis jumped overboard and we had to go rescue him. it was a terrible attempt. There were three of us they were testing, and they said i did the best, but that's not saying much. it took us 4 1/2 minutes to get kitted up, save him, and bring him back to the boat. it should take less than two. the saddest part was the other two rescuers just finished their rescue course two days ago. everything is fresh in their minds. i haven't done any rescuing in at least two months. ha. i hope noone actually falls off; they're screwed.

what else....

the parmesan cheese here tastes different, in a not good way. and everyone makes fun of me because i'm american and i say aluminum, instead of aluminium. it's not my fault we took an i out of there.

i'm having a great time. but my hours suck and i'm usually exhausted by 8pm. i will be going out tomorrow night before i have to get back on the boat, and then it's back to 9pm bedtimes. well, except the halloween party. but after that for sure. until the next thing. :)

i miss my kira. sorry the internet sucks and i keep getting kicked offline in the middle of conversations. i love you!

i head back out on the liveaboard on friday, for 13 days this time. barf. no contact with the outside world. talk to me before then!