Goodbye Airlie Beach, Hello Cairns

So I've decided it is finally time to leave Airlie Beach. The way things worked out a job simply wasn't going to be coming available for a while longer and I decided I've spent enough time hanging around here so I've decided to keep going with my treck up the coast. I'm going to be leaving Airlie tonight and taking the overnight bus all the way up to Cairns.

What to do

So I've started looking at alternatives of what to do if I can't get a job here in Airlie. There is a massive industry of boat deliveries where you can crew a boat and sail to pretty much anywhere in the world on private yachts. How it works is people either are paying to have their private boat moved to somewhere are they are in need of people to help crew the boats themselves. So I've been doing a bit of looking around at this and I'm thinking if I can't get a job here I'm going to see if I can jump onto a boat somewhere around here or else up in southeast asia. Of course I still need to find a boat that will take me so it won't happen over night but this is at least my plan of the moment if things don't turn out well here.

For an idea of what I'm talking about check out www.findacrew.com

Whats going on

So I've been in Airlie for a long time now sailing around. I'm still in the process of trying to get a job here but I don't really know if I'm any closer to that goal than I was a month ago. To this date I've now done about 10 volly runs out on the different boats and I'm at the point that I know the boats better than some of there current crew do. However that doesn't mean I am getting a job because the company I have been working with is looking at having 1 female crew on every boat, meaning they need to hire a lot of girls, which equals bad things for me in terms of getting a job. I was however talking with the owner this last week and he still seems to want to give me a job he just needs to work it out with the other owners because there is one crew person that is going to be leaving very shortly that they do not have anyone available to take her place other than me, so I'm hoping that I will get that possition.

If I don't end up getting that position I will probably just go back to travelling for a while because the next position after that one doesn't open up for a month and a half at least.

In the mean time however I've been fairly busy, between trips I have gotten my Queensland powerboat operators licence which now means I can legal drive pretty much any motorised water craft in the world no matter how large as long as it is for private purposes, and that i'm allowed to operate motorised craft of up to 15 meters for commercial purposes. So if anyone has a 400 foot ocean liner they need someone to drive I can do it...

I've also been studying for my marine radio operators licence because the owner of the sailing company is certified to do the testing so I'm going to be getting that qualification without having to bother taking the course or spending the money on it.

Still waiting

So basically I'm still waiting around in Airlie Beach to get a job, I've still be going out on the boats doing volly runs but I haven't officially been hired on yet, hopefully I will hear more in the next couple days.

Cell phone is fixed now.