Cruiseboats and Great Days

Cruise boat days can be the worst. Last week was about to do me in but luckily I, along with the help of Leanne and Pete and everyone else at the dive shop, managed to pull through. The morning out was perfectly fine. In fact I thought it was going to be the best cruise boat day yet. However in the afternoon that was a different story. It started off alright, however I knew that that was not going to last. We usually leave the dock at about 1:45 and that day I was supposed to be back at the docks at 4:15. Let me break things down for you. It takes about 25 to 30 minutes to get to the dive site. Then we have to get the certified divers in at one dive site and then move to another to do the intros. This takes 15 minutes or so. Once we are moored up, we get two or three groups of four divers in the water with gear and this can take anywhere from 25 to 40 minutes. Of course on this day it took a good 40 minutes. I then have to account for the 10 minutes to get everyone back on board and then the 30 minutes to get back to the dock. That means I had about 30 to 35 minutes to get through four skills and then a dive. The dive alone takes about 30 minutes and then sometimes the skills can take 5 to 15 minutes depending on if the person is stupid enough to inhale water through their nose. On this day I had stupid divers that took 15 minutes. That meant they had 15 minutes in the water which of course was not going to make them happy.
The site we went to is not my favorite. In fact, I hate it. It is a crappy reef that I always manage to get lost on. However on this day I did not mind and just hopped in the water hoping for all the best. Once my petrified divers were down things went alright. We had a good dive, and when my dive watch hit 25 minutes I knew I needed to find the boat so we could stay on schedule. However, I realized I had no idea where I was and I had no idea where the boat was. I insist that I was to intently focused on my divers making sure that they were not getting in trouble, and therefore I lost my sense of direction. After looking for the mooring for another 10 minutes I decided to surface and swim back to the boat. I knew at this point I would be behind schedule, but there is a small safety margin that I knew would keep me safe. However, destiny had other plans and as I was breaking down gear I noticed thick black smoke coming from the cover of one of the engines. I told George and when he looked smoke came pouring out. Not good. Turns out one of the engines was blown and we could only run on one engine. On top of this we were fighting the current, which ended pushing us into the wrong side of the harbor. By this time I was freaking out because I knew we would not make it, and therefore these cruisers were going to be spending the night in Vila on Nautilus's bill. I could just see my head being chopped off. I called the shop to fill them in and luckily after some intense conversations they decided to send the faster (not broken) fishing boat out to pick up the people and bring them in. Luckily everything worked out, and I only got a small lecture. Of course, turns out that the cruise was not going to be leaving at the time we were told, but a whole hour later, meaning all the stress and rush was not necessary.
This weeks cruise boat was just as interesting, but it went much better. The morning launch went off without a hitch and I was mostly worried about the afternoon one because Leanne was leaving for Oz (Australia) and leaving me in charge of everything. We got everyone on board and left and then I started on getting all the papers correctly filled in. Of course there was one person that had done no paperwork before coming so I had to walk him through it all. As my luck would be, the man was older and from Brazil. He understood not a word of English so I ended up somehow gesturing to him what he needed to put in each box. It was the worst game of charades I have ever played. Then on top of that I decided to fill out what I could for him and he thanked me by placing his arm around me and hugging me. This was no normal hug, for one I was standing up filling out his paperwork, also he refused to release me, and then whenever I tried to shift away from him he grabbed me hard and pulled me closer into the side of him. Of course when I tried to ask him to let me go he didn't understand a thing and instead thought if he pulled me closer he could understand what I was saying. I just ended up blaming the weirdness on the culture differences and tried to think nothing of it. Luckily for me, he was not in my group of intro divers. That was really the only interesting thing that happened on that cruise ship and thankfully we made it back to the dock in time.
Back down underwater not much has been happening. The most interesting thing that has happened recently is that the giant titan triggerfish are breeding and laying eggs. During this time they get very aggressive and territorial and will fight anything that gets in their way. If you have never seen these fish they are really dorky looking. They have big black bug eyes, a big overbite and some of the biggest buck teeth you have ever seen. Whenever I first saw these guys I wondered if their teeth could do some damaged so I Googled it. Turns out they have been known to go after scuba divers and I saw pictures of people that had had their lips literally ripped off by these fish. Not pretty. Anyway I happened to be having a fun dive and I saw a huge one of these fish. For some reason it did not swim away like they normally do and it actually started eyeballing me. I of course took notice and suddenly it turned on me and charged. And I mean FAST. It truly wanted a piece of me. Luckily I reacted fast and flipped my fin up and straight into it's face. This stopped it and it turned away from me and warily watched me. I kept going on my way watching it and it tried to charge me one more time. After that I quickly finned away.
Today was the sort of day that really makes me grateful about where and what I am doing. It started like any normal day, great weather blue skies and tons of sun. We had four people going out with us this morning and luckily I talked the boss into letting us go to Mele Bay, which has reefs that are completely different from what we normally dive on. The first dive was fun, saw some really amazing nudibranchs, a huge painted reef lobster (bone white with neon purple markings), a moray eel, and tons of different fish. The next dive was really neat. For one I didn't lost and have to pop up to see where the boat was (like the previous dive). Then on top of that we saw a huge turtle and also a blue spotted reef ray. Then on this site there are literally fields of sea anemones that cover the sea floor. And all throughout these sea anemones are all sorts of different species of clownfish. It was so amazing to be hovering over all this and have all these clownfish surround you. Pretty special. When we got back we ended up having the afternoon off. I got to chat with my family and also my second family (you know who you are). Then I decided to go to my favorite beach on Erakor and bake and read in the sun. It was a great afternoon and then to top it off I decided to walk to the best Asian food restaurant Pi Ha's (I think that is how you spell it). I had a huge meal for all of 13 dollars (US). Then I found out that they were celebrating their two year anniversary so I got a discount off of that too. My day really couldn't get much better. Hopefully my last few weeks here in Vanuatu will be filled with more days like today.