About sharks, volcano's and the flu

I’m tired. Or exhausted, rather. The season is about to end and that’s a good thing, because I don’t think I would have lasted much longer. The dives have been fantastic, I’ve seen things under water I had never seen before, we’ve had great groups of people on board, we met very interesting and funny personalities, the food is amazing, all the boat crew members are very sweet and caring, it’s been a great challenge to work as a cruise director. But after five months of work with only 6 days off somewhere in February, I must admit that I’m totally and completely pooped!

The last few trips have been quite exciting. Three weeks ago, Darja & Ivan came to work on the boat, taking pictures and making a video for Seafari marketing purposes. It was really fantastic to have them on board. After almost five months of not seeing any friends, it’s quite a treat to welcome your best friend and her boyfriend (or your brother and his girlfriend, depending on the point of view you take). Darja & I did a few yoga sessions, Stefano & Ivan went fishing and we caught up on a lot of El Gouna gossip. The week flew by too fast!

The week after that, we were supposed to welcome another group of divers, but some angry volcano in Iceland threw ash in the food (a.k.a. roet in het eten) and our new guests never made it to Male. Similarly, 12 of the previous group didn’t manage to leave the Maldives (unfortunately for us Darja & Ivan did), so we turned the boat into an emergency hotel and the guests that were supposed to leave, spent another four days on board. Isn’t that everybody’s dream, being stuck on a tropical island? Well, they more or less lived that dream, and although it did entail some issues with kids that were staying with grand-parents, flights that needed rescheduling and emergency emails that needed to be sent to jobs and families, all of our guests decided to make the best out of it and we had a very pleasant few days in a atmosphere of shared sorrow turned into intimacy. After everybody managed to leave, we had an empty boat for two days. How odd, not to have guests around!

Desaturated and relatively rested, we started the one before last trip. Dozens of manta’s in the lagoons, whale sharks, grey reef sharks, white tips, eagles rays, everything that was supposed to be there was there. We are lucky, the monsoon change has been kind on us and the weather is still very pleasant.

This week is our last trip, we finish the cruise on Saturday and then we will stay one week on board to clear the boat and put all the company’s possessions in a container in Male. We’ll have to count the inventory, wash the equipment, tidy up all the paper work. And then, somewhere mid-May, we will finally start our well-deserved holiday. Where? No idea yet... we’ll start in Singapore for a few days, as I want to clear stuff out of the storage facility and then, we’ll go where the wind takes us.

Wherever we go, whatever we do, Stefano and I need to spend some quality time together. What? After working together for five months in a row, 24/7, we need to spend some quality time together? Yes, we do. Because working on a boat with guests on board every single day, you don’t get a lot of privacy. And we have worked on each other’s nerves, big time. I have come to realise that I am a highly ambitious, perfectionistic bitch, no matter in which environment you put me. In the bank of course I was well camouflaged in between all the sharks and high-flyers, but here, in the diving business, I sort of stand out. The sharks are of a different kind... And it’s an especially big contrast with Stefano whose soul and spirit have never been polluted with self-development, efficiency and management trainings and courses. He just is. And he just does. And for me, who is forever planning and scheming to get the best out of things, it works on my nerves if the rest doesn’t help thinking ahead. Not that plans actually work out, flexibility is required almost every minute of the day. So between the two of us, managing the boat actually works splendidly. I am the master organiser, he is the “chill factor”. The only problem is that it’s not good for our relationship. Every body profits from our opposite qualities, but we end up frustrated. So we need some time off, together, anywhere...

Fortunately, the crew likes working with us and we love working with them. Stefano is the joker, the fisherman and I am their mummy and their bank. Every end of the month they come to me to change their salary paid in Maldivian Rufia to US dollars to send their pay home to India or Bangladesh. And when they have pain or are sick, they come to me and ask if I have a pill or a cream to make them feel better. And they reciprocate.

Yesterday I fell ill. I felt it coming a couple of days ago, sore throat, muscle ache all over my body, tired, more than usual... and yesterday after the first dive, I could hardly climb the ladder back up to the boat. I crashed onto bed and slept the whole day. Turns out I had 38 degrees of fever, basically, I caught the flu. For the first time in about 20 years I think... Stefano ran up and down bringing me fruit, water and kisses. Some crew members came knocking at my cabin, to ask if I was alright, bringing me hot drinks with lemon, rum and ginger, giving me advice as to what to eat and drink to get better. When I came out of my cabin in the evening, one of the chefs made me a super hot noodle soup with five cloves of garlic, pepper, chili and onion, to make me sweat out the fever... and boy did I sweat! Today, the fever is gone and I feel much better. One more day out of the water and I'll dive again.

And so we form a great team, taking care of each other, having fun together, working hard hard hard... I will miss the boys, but I need a holiday...