day in the life of...

This blog will be a tad bit longer, so maybe read it when you have time or read it in chapters but after today, Monday the 20th of September, I thought I should maybe give you a REAL look into the life of…. So…

MONDAY, 20 September

Today I was on a lunch dinner shift, so 11:30 – 15:00…might I just add here, at this point…THIS was the most DISGUSTING shift of my life… as I sweated a good and solid 2 litres from my back, which as I have mentioned before accumulated on the top of my ass… pictures to follow…. The pants are in fact NOT two-toned…YES friends the top dark colour is WET…sweat…. But we laughed it off. 30 guests in house for lunch as the other 12 were out diving all day. 2 servers one barman and our manager. 30 guests sit at once. SLAMMED. This was fun in its own way though.

The difference in the day was that I actually woke up at 09:00 and swam a few laps in the ocean. Endorphins make people happy and happy people are well…happy…. And full of energy I was laughing so much today even though I was DRENCHED in my own sweat. Dear diary…today was fun.

Ok so I am now in my room in my PJs after night service, it is now 02:15 and I clocked out at 23:45, after which we had a few, 3 beers. Tonight, is a night I chose not to remember as I lost all dignity and femininity… tonight…I sweated triple as much as this afternoon my ass was so soaking wet I actually didn’t know what to do, to the point where after service my body was still so hot that the sweat stains just kept on running to my knees… I heard the comment tonight ‘ilse, how did your pants get so wet? ‘ ‘Chris…I don’t want to talk about it right now k….’ today I felt violated… its harsh but I got violated TWICE today where EVERYTHING was just drained out of me… EVERYthing but I feel good because I know I worked, who needs exercise, I’m pretty sure I lost AT LEAST 5 kgs today ;-)

TUESDAY…, 21 September

Today I worked the same shift, i.e lunch and dinner… Prepared, I took a long an EXTRA pair of shorts… from 11:3- - 13:30 I wore one pair and then (overdue though) changed them for the next hour and they were still a little wet. After work ran home jumped into my cossie and I and my bathroom buddy ran to the beach where we just swam hung out and lay in the sun for a few moments before getting MUNCHED by sand flies. **back to work*** ONE pair of pants, tonight…

Tonight I was the food runner, and I absolutely hated it, indeed the chefs and many of the men we work with were rather more crude and chauvinistic than usual, with a new chef in house and a bunch of old staff, younger chefs, with different levels of skill, tonight was not fun at all. Maybe I am tired.

WEDNESDAY , 22 September.

DAY OFF! Lucky me and a friend booked ourselves on the dive boat for today, full day outer reef. 2 dives and a buffet lunch. About an hours drive (by boat) from the island we reach one of the world’s top 10 dive sites ‘the cod hole’. We are to tag at the back, being staff and we get to be on our own mission, being a rescue and an advanced diver. We see a white tip reef shark and many more beautiful things. The thing about diving here is WAY more than the fish and things you see but the absolute beauty of the whole experience, about the coral and the absolute beautiful clarity of the water. I have never seen such stunning sparkling blue water. After we get back on the boat we drive a fair 5 or 10 minutes to the next reef…. ‘No name’ WOW…what a stunning place. We have lunch here, prawns, chicken, salad, rolls, etc etc. wonderful. DIVE….STUNNING…wow… definitely one of the most beautiful sites I have been to. Just stunning- and the visibility was quite murky at least a 15 metres or so, but the large schools of fish and the LIFE down there was just beautiful, the wall just drops down to about 40 metres or so but we stayed up at about 14… one more time STUNNING.

After the second dive, cookies and fruit and we head back. As we pull in the bay we feed the hugest Queensland groper I have ever seen in m life, this fish is the size of a small mini car… I KIDYOU NOT it could swallow a baby child!!! From the boat we jump into the side of the restaurant as we are JUST in time for the wine tasting / education. After which I go home, shower get dressed go eat and then head over to the social club where tonight is ‘movie night’ and screening ANCHORMAN..' you ate a WHOLE wheel of cheese...??? i'm not even angry...i'm AMAZED!'

Day awesome, done.

THURSDAY, 23 September.

After a day off and a bunch of unhappy and bitchy people it’s kind of hard to get all pumped about work… anyway, woke up at 10:30, went for ‘lunch’ at 11 and then jumped on the paddle skis and went to the bay next door where we just tanned and cleared our heads…. I was on set-up shift; 14:30-17:30 and dinner shift 18:00-00:00. Smashed it! ‘A quick game is a good game’ but I need to get up early tomorrow because I am kind of feeling over it right now… MONOTOMY is a curse….

FRIDAY, 24 September

This morning I woke up, had a little cereal, then slathered my body with oil, put on a frock, book in hand IPod in ears, BEACH TIME. Tanned for an hour back home, ilse-time. 14:30 start, set-up – cruisey. For dinner service I was a floater ad served the degustation menu on the beach, 60 odd guests at once…CRUISEY, GOOO team! Had a drink after work ‘debriefing’. When I got home I heard loud noises and laughing from balcony, BOOM, party-now! ‘ILSE!! We waited up for you!!! ‘So we drank and danced and laughed, let’s just say I’m very glad I only arrived after 12. After it died we ran over to the chef’s place where they were chilling and just hung out there for an hour or so and had a laugh. To bed.

SATURDAY, 25 September

Besides going to bed at 3am I was up at 8am, did some washing went up to the staff mass and played around on the net, (need to start planning the next move) anywho, came back down to the Bronx, put my washing in the dryer, got my cozzie and goggles, went for a quick swim, surrounded by a school of tiny fishies and then bigger ones, AWESOMENESS. Had a shower, me and my balcony mate tried making French toast but then heard the rumours about the pizza in the mess and I went to go collect to containers full. Now we are hanging in our hammocks, pizza in one hand and water in the other, she is passed out cold and I am working at 14:30.

Work = shitty. Today was my official three months on the island.

SUNDAY, 26 September

Woke up this morning had a coffee, in my hammock chilled out with my balcony buddy and fellow neighbour, went up to the mess and spoke to my mom, sushi for lunch today. Came back and went for a walk to the mangrove beach, down the airstrip, we couldn’t do too much as it’s been raining. But we sat on the beach and watched one of the other staff members kite surfing. We sat we chatted geared the stalker seagulls, and well just relaxed. It started raining and we just sat. Bliss. After an hour we tracked back and 14:30 I was at work. Pretty cruisey night at work, 66 covers. Usual pain of after service set up where everyone seems to disappear, well all the ‘chiefs’ leaving the measly Indians to do everything – anyway let’s not get into that…been pretty ‘good’ at not staying at work too long after work, drinking etc. one beer and bed and I think my body is loving it!

...isLand JiBBER jaBBER...

***page break....this might be a very wishy washy and boring all over the place blog....APOLOGIES....we need one of these to get my ass back in gear and back on track....***

Been on the island now for almost 3 months, I have received a free ticket back to the mainland as a ‘reward’ and as such I have also accumulated 100 hours of overtime in 8 weeks, which is SHA-WEET! I will honestly say though that this morning as I am typing this blog, I DO feel it in my body. Within these 3 weeks I have seen, staff members resign and leave, new ones arrive and not cut it and leave as well as new ones arrive and are still here I have also been here for the return of some that left the time I arrived.

2 weeks ago this was a very hot place, not hot as in scorching hot, but hot as in HOT 27 or 30 degrees by 10am…and then just topped off with a DASH of humidity… in a nutshell that refers to ASS-sweat…. Which I have actually factually proven to not be entirely true… let me explain… we wear thin light beige/tan pants (shorts in day, longs at night) as well as ‘n polyester navy blue shirt which does NOT absorb water…i.e. the sweat trickles down your back, wait, I had a very poetic way of describing it the other day that it almost sounded nice… the small beads of sweat, trickled and rolled down the curves of our backs as they gently settled in the crack. So in a nutshell the pants act as a net for the sweat and it all gets absorbed and then the patch gets bigger and bigger, to such an extent that we have 2 or 3 wardrobe changes a day…during 2 services. With some people pants may be wet UP TO THE KNEE…. It’s disgusting but it is the RAW truth. Oh and of course these HOTTEST days followed the week in which the resort was at 108% occupancy- so it’s been real busy.

This last week the resort has been booked out for a wedding party, 45 guests (all flown in and staying in house). So there have been huge dinners and canapés and cocktail parties and today is in fact beach wedding, and as such tonight will be another loooong night. But I do enjoy it.

This Sunday coming up, we have 6 guests in house and as such only have 3 or 4 staff members rostered for that day; our supervisor encouraged us to go party on the beach next door. We made flyers and spread the word, Sunday all day, we will be chilling on the beach, drinking and dancing and playing volley ball, tug of war and well…just CHILLING!!!

O how can I forget my last ‘day-off-story’ so I had the same day off as one of our chefs and the weather has not entirely been ‘beach-lying’ weather. So we went in for lunch at the restaurant. SUPERB. Here’s the catch…. And now listen, really carefully…. I got tipsy on CHAMPAGNE….the proper stuff, French ones….ha ha ha WHAT A LIFE right…??? About 2 and a half bottles between the two of us. Food was amazing too, it was the day before our barge service arrived so as such ingredients were LIMITED and WE could tell but others couldn’t. Cheese is always the highlight though… this place just knows how to do cheese and it’s BEAUTIFUL.

A few days ago we had a party at the social club and so myself and two other characters, one from water sports and the island naturalist, decided to make our own cocktails as he had just bought a mixer. So we made 3…the first one being quite a ‘party-starter’ with a bit of zing to it, we called RAAAWBERRY (I can’t remember the entire recipe) but the following cocktail was called ‘poetry in a glass’ 1 shot vodka, 2 shots Malibu, I shot Chambord, 5fresh cherries (stoned), 2 shots Ribena and top up with ice and blend…AMAZING….it’s like...’poetry in a glass’. After that creation we then jazzed it up a little and added another shot of vodka to the mix… creating the one and only…PMC – ‘pop my cherry’ make it at home friends its AAAMAZING.

Anyway that was just a quick feed, life is good, life is grand, and life is GREAT.

That was WEEKS ago, I have been extremely slack, and thank Suzanney for the pressure of posting now… ;-) but I have just come back from mainland and as such am back on the island now for like another good 3 months. It is REAL good to be back…that’s when you know you got a good job. I did however have an absolutely AWESOME time off, got fetched from the airport by none other than my mom dad and sister – awesome awesome. We then went to a normal caravan / camping ground a ‘holiday park’. Let’s just say these aussies do it in style…the camping grounds are STUNNING and I would actually be able to live there like a hippie…. It’s got Wi-Fi and everything… right? Anyway here we were also attacked by green and woken by bats/birds whatever makes that noise – but it was all in all good. During my time here we went up to KUranda which takes you over the Daintree heritage forest in a cable car for MILES…from above you see the most stunning and dense rainforest you can even see the magnificent and huge Ulysses butterflies and hear the buzzing of a kingdom of bugs!

 

From the cable car we were able to get off and take a walk on the boardwalk through the forest –BEAUTIFUL. The way back was via the scenic railway, emphasis on SCENIC as scenic implies it goes half the speed it usually would –still beautiful and amazing but a tad bit long as everyone tries to hide behind sunglasses or take a catnap in the tunnels…

Anyway after exploration I had the opportunity to have a few drinks in the presidential suite of the casino hotel in cairns as one of my friends from the island had decided to spoil himself a little. The next day we drove up to port Douglas which is the cutest little quaint town on the beach. On the drive up we stopped at the beaches and resorts where we could- gorgeous places and beaches but be warned ‘CAUTION, stingers and crocodiles swim in these waters – enter at own risk…’ no place I REALLY want to swim…. My island is my safe haven…

All good things must come to an end as I celebrated my work and life with a bottle of veuve with mom and dad.

Back on the island again and back in the swing of things as I run a million miles a day, sweat 5 litres, swim with the rays in the early morning and well….just enjoy life and all its things. Its 00:15 now and I been running all day… but life is magical to me right now. And I WILL be more efficient in keeping you up to date as this was quite a long tedious and difficult blog to write.

Peace out and happiness to you!