Now I’m a chef!
I really like the boat. I like all the people and the
scenery and the idea of living on a boat. I want to stay longer and they have a
volunteer program where you like do the dishes and can stay on board and dive
for free. I was talking to the hosts about extending my stay and one asked a
specific question “Can you cook?” Well duh, I’m a great cook. Guac and chicken,
boom done, MasterChef.
And so I said yes and then I was in the kitchen, shadowing the
current chef. He’s got long long dreads and missing teeth and says he was in
the worst prison in Australia and was also at one point a millionaire and had a
drug problem and had gone to rehab and back. I believe some of it. I was moved
to staff quarters and he’s even got a little hidey hole where he hides his weed
and he takes a bong hit before going to sleep (and probably before work too).
This leads to a little problem with the skipper. The skipper
is a strict “no drugs on my boat” kinda guy. Makes sense. The next day they’re
screaming at each other and the chef decides he’s had enough and is quitting.
So now I’m the chef and instead of my name they all call me
chef or cheffie. It’s fun, I have a title.
There’s a lot of responsibility in my new position. I gotta cook for like 80 people and keep it new and interesting. But I think I do best when I have no idea what I’m doing and no guidance. Then I’m free to mess up and fix it all on my own and no one will know any better.
I’m already making changes around here, like Dread Chef used
to always serve canned spaghetti and beans for breakfast. I think that’s dumb
and so does everyone else. So I put a stop to that crap. I have all day to cook
so I started marinating meat for much much longer, and I invented new cake
flavors like banana and coffee.
Of course I make a lot of mistakes too. I over cooked pasta,
then had to rescue it in a pasta bake. I put the cake batter in too deep of a
pan, CLASSSSSSSSSIC mistake. I even knew it when I put it in the oven. “ This
isn’t gonna bake all the way through Taylor”. THROUGH TAYLOR???? No. Through,
Taylor. But I did it anyway. Then had to rebake it in a smaller pan. I kept
having trouble getting the cake out of the pan too, so there were lots of
wasted cake crumbs. EXCEPT! You can just crumble up those cake bits, slap in
some butter and crust that up in the oven, and then you got a cake base for a
pie or something. I also messed up some brownies, you know what goes great on
top of ice cream? Messed up brownies.
See? This is the kind of fast critical thinking you should
learn in college, but really can only learn on a boat.
I’m doing really well! Despite all the mistakes, I manage to
hide them well, and every meal people are giving compliments like I’m some kind
of culinary Jesus. I have saved them from eternal blandmealation.
I get to dive once or twice a day as well. Sometimes I just
jump in for a snorkel. A snork as I like to call it. I paddled around and saw a
big black tip reef shark, who circled me for a while and it was the first time
I really felt nervous about a shark. Probs cuz I wasn’t wear a wet suit and you
can just feel everything a little bit more.
But then! As the shark left me to my business I felt a
ripping pain across my hands and foot. Like a bundle of whips coming across my
skin. I couldn’t see anything that would be causing it so I rocketed back to
the boat. I was afraid it was a killer irukandji jellyfish and I was about to
die.
But I haven’t died! It was instead the much less deadly Portuguese Man of War or Blue Bottle. And it was a pretty mild sting and I am just a baby. Just sort of like a bunch of bee stings on you.
I ran out of air the other day too. At Manta Ray Bay, which
I’m pretty sure is a level in Super Mario Galaxy. I was diving with some other
members of the crew and I was screwing around not really worrying about air
consumption. But these guys are literally pros and I’m on like my 10th
dive. So naturally I was going to be the lowest on air.
We swam around some caves and I signaled I was low on air,
at 50 bar, which is the level you’re supposed to surface with. And they were
like “it’s chill let’s just head up slowly towards the boat to decompress and
you’ll be fine”. That’s all one hand signal.
Well I was not fine, and at 10 bar I had to head up cuz you
could feel the air was at much less pressure and I had to like suck it in to
get it in me. But I was already above them, So I surfaced just as we got to the
boat.
But they were 5 meters down and hadn’t seen me surface so I
was watching them freak out and do the lost buddy signal. But I was right
there! I couldn’t get their attention cuz you can’t make sound underwater. So
they started heading back to where we were diving. And I had to follow them on
the surface cuz I wanted them to look up and see me. I tried dropping my fin to
them and using the sun to make shadows but they never got it. Eventually I just
had to make the herculean maneuver of coming down to them free diving and tap
their dumb heads.
I love being on the boat and meeting new people and learning
new things. Today I learned what walking the dog means for boats. We were going
to a new reef but I knew this one was nearby so I asked German Dive Man why it
was taking so long. He said we were walking the dog. I was still confused. He
said “why do you walk the dog?” I said “oh”. So turns out we just dump all our
boat poop into the ocean.
I met a Sydney couple too and the girl said that they have
jellyfish fights like we have snowball fights. The jellies they use don’t sting
though. Still, pretty weird, pretty gross, pretty jelly.
