January 20 - Australia: Cairns

An Unexpected Day Off

Jon and I went into DSDD this morning for our 6:30 "how-many-people-we-got so who's-working-today" meeting.  Horst looked up at us and said - for the first time ever - 'we don't need you guys today'.  Jon and I didn't even know what to say!  This is our last week, and we're definitely getting tired of it all.  But since we're the "cheap labor", we're usually the last of the crew that gets let go.  We were so excited to have an unexpected day off, we couldn't get out of the shop fast enough.

It's been a great experience working on SeaQuest.  The crew is great, the work is exhausting, and The Reef... well, no complaints about The Reef.

But Jon and I reached the top of the "boat-work" learning curve a good two weeks ago.  Now, we're hardly experts in the field, but the challenge we faced at the beginning has significantly dwindled.  To the point that - last week - I was standing on the boat and I thought, "Ho hum.  I think I might go nuts if I had to do this every day for years on end."  This is an interesting insight - to say the least.  Jon and I have often said that we would love to "retire" and run a scuba shop in some tropical locale.  That dream hasn't been nixed, but the romance of it has certainly been altered.  

The other night, we were discussing our shared ennui over dinner.  We agreed that if we worked in this industry for real, we would inevitably (even sub-consciously) set goals to further challenge ourselves.  For example: becoming dive supervisor, then learning to skipper the boat, and - eventually - managing the company.  The irony, of course, is that the final goal is a challenging and even perhaps stressful desk job.  Just the thing we would have come here to avoid.  I suppose that there's just no way to avoid the ambition and need for challenges that's burned in who we are.  I assume that these feelings will lessen as we get older and we find priorities elsewhere (family, friends, home).  But it's been so interesting to see that - even outside of the "corporate world" Jon and I know so well - we have an innate desire to climb the corporate ladder.

Hmmmm... something for me to chew on for a while.

What Did We Do?

So what did we do on our day off?  Nothing.  Nada.  We sat around and read and watched TV.  Jon made his famous and incredibly delicious home-made chili.

Our instructor course starts next week, and once that kicks in we'll have no time for pleasure reading or journal-writing or chili-making.  So Voila!  A forced day of rest.

A lovely picture of me in bed with a good book

The chili was delicious and there's a lot leftover for meals for the next few nights.  Yummy.