Days 45-48, October 30 - November 2. Hostie on the Great Barrier Reef

Tuesday, October 30

We had another good night in the tent and woke up at 6 am. Matthew drove Daniel and me to the pier at the harbor, where the ship was anchored. We boarded at 7:30 am after a good breakfast and chatted during the journey. I gave Daniel some tips for the dive and then we said goodbye. But this goodbye felt very short, as if we would definitely see each other again.

After the dive, we chatted for a while and listened to Dive Master Macka giving instructions to the others during theory lessons. Then we went to our cabin to sleep.

Wednesday, October 31

In the morning, we had an early dive at 5:50 am. We had already prepared the dishes and breakfast the night before. The four hosties went diving together again, and it was simply beautiful. In the morning, I felt like the entire reef and all the fish and creatures waking up and swimming around. 

However, after 33 minutes, I had to abort the dive because I had an almost unbearable stabbing headache that I couldn't explain, but everything else was fine. 

Then there was a lot of work with the new guests in the morning, as well as cleaning all the rooms. In the afternoon, we had our second dive, which was also wonderful. The funny part was the dive instructors, who dressed up as ghosts or superheroes for Halloween and went into the depths. But in the afternoon, I surfaced early after 23 minutes and said goodbye to my dive partners underwater. Dive Master Macka had already suspected a cold in the morning, and he turned out to be right. My nose was completely congested in the late afternoon, so it didn't make sense to do the night dive.

Thursday, November 1

In the morning, I talked to the staff and decided to leave the ship today because staying on board didn't bring any advantages for me with the explanation given. So after the last morning work and lunch, I left for the mainland in the afternoon, where I collected my refund of $485 from the company's office. Then I walked for an hour to Spencer's place. During the time on the ship, my solar panel and refrigerator were delivered, which I accidentally sent to the address of the old hostel. So I picked up these two packages and spent another night at the Spencer family's place.

Friday, November 2

I didn't have anything to do on Friday, so I did a thorough cleaning of the car. First, I emptied everything and vacuumed it thoroughly, then Maria got a good car wash. However, there was a problem because Maria and I had a little argument, and she locked me out. Like every woman, she was just having a bad day, and I found myself in front of locked doors. Oh boy, what do you do in such a situation!? First, I went to Matthew's workshop and got long iron and aluminum wires, and I used wooden spoons from the kitchen to pry open the side door. This worked very well, but I couldn't move the door handle to unlock it. After several hours, I finally gave up and, after a little research, called the RACQ, the Australian breakdown service. For $175, a very friendly mechanic came and used special tools to unlock the door for me. Poorer but wiser, I now knew that I had to be careful not to get locked out by Maria with the key. In the evening, I packed all my stuff so that I would be ready to leave in the morning because I had my practical motorboat exam on Saturday.