The Deep End Just Got Deeper – Hobart, Australia

Friday, 24 November 2023
Day 2 of 110ish

Another day in paradise!

Here I am, pretending to be a galley hand. I have absolutely zero business being in a commercial kitchen. I still can’t believe I have this job with zero experience. They must be really desperate. Unreal!

But Phil has asked me to make a coleslaw. Um…no internet. Yikes! Hat in hand, I asked for the ingredients and got to chopping up some cabbage.

Busting Out The Guns

And more loading. And packing. And more loading. And more storing.

Today the boat goes to bunker, which means that it goes to the fuel dock to fill up. On these ships, they don’t talk in gallons or litres, they talk in tons. My mind still can’t fathom it. There was a firehose of fuel going onto the boat for hours. Absolutely mind blowing. And get this, we filled up with more fuel in NZ…only 80,000 litres that time!

More Medical And Meandering

Well, before they raised the gangplank, off the boat I trundled again. This time for the rest of my ENG1, my seafarer medical. So into the car with Marty again. A likeable local chap he is. We are hoping to dock in Hobart in four months time so I was grilling Marty for all the places to go when we return.

Alas, there was little time to squeeze him for information before we arrived at the clinic. Downtown Hobart is fairly compact. So I threatened him with an email once we know we are docking in Hobart. Ha ha!

The clinic people were awesome. There was a little bit of a delay, but in my style, I took it in stride. Apparently, that didn’t go unnoticed and the ladies were very full of compliments to me and my easy going attitude.

And the doctor! What a character! He was a hoot! We were instant friends and taking the piss out of each other within seconds. What a rockstar!

After an insane amount of waiting around for my paperwork to go through, I got medically cleared to go to sea.

And, luckily, the same rules applied as yesterday. I got to walk the 10-15 minutes from the clinic to the Australian Longline office. Sweet!

Down the road I wandered, found the office, found Marty and found out that we needed to wait for this other guy to show up before we could return to the boat. So, in truly Marty fashion, he asked if I wanted to wander around some more. Um, YES!!! So away I went. I snuck back to the hospital to grab a spot of internetness to call Tom and then I headed on a walkabout around downtown Hobart.

Heavenly Hobart

Downtown Hobart is an architecturally stunning city. Not in the sense of these brand new, flash buildings. The exact opposite. Charming buildings from when the city was first established. Embellished artistically like they used to do and carefully kept up. I loved my short walking tour and am very grateful to Marty for allowing me the opportunity.

I found myself back at the office just in time. The other dude turned out to be William known as Billy, one of the observers that joined the boat for this trip. Billy is an observer for the Australian government and is an independent eyewitness of boat operations. He reports back if the boat has any practices or incidents that breach CCMLAR (Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Systems), part of the Antarctic Treaty system, regulations or fishing regulations while at sea. Great guy and nice to know that these backstops exist to *hopefully* help keep the fishery healthy and clean.

The Deep End Is Real And We Are Underway!

As I was walking up, Phil was leaving. Oh my! On my own already. Eeeek! Thankfully, he basically prepared dinner before he left. Thank God! Damo and I didn’t have to do much other than reheat some food. Phew!

At about 9pm that night, the pilot boarded and the ship sailed. At first I had a hard time telling that we were actually underway. The boat is soooo smooth and there isn’t a ton of engine noise. Lovely!

Plus, I got to watch the pilot boat through my cabin porthole. It was quite entertaining watching the pilot disembark the Aurora. Looked pretty awkward in the dark!

Once we rounded the heads, we were at sea, but even then, she was super steady. I was starting to feel like I was a passenger on a cruise (except for the working part)!