We've spent most of this last week trying to decide whether or not it's a good idea to schedule a vacation between moving out and moving in. On the one hand, we're unlikely to forget stuff for vacation since we've handled it all recently.1 On the other hand, packing is exhausting, and increasing the normal amount of packing before a trip also increases the normal state of exhaustion before a trip. After the last few weeks, we were drained enough, ready enough for this vacation. After moving out of the place in Ultimo, after packing up four to five times the amount of stuff we brought with us four months ago,2, after making all the storage, deposit, retreival, transport, and communication arrangements-- after all this on top of the last few weeks, we were triply ready for this vacation.
Which makes it all the more frustrating, then, that our long-awaited tropical vacation in far north Queensland began with a big disappointment. We flew in to Cairns (pronounced "cans"), the tourist mecca located 7.50 north of the Tropic of Capricorn and 160 south of the equator, on Sunday. We had only one piece of the two weeks ahead of us planned and booked: we were geting our SCUBA certification in a five-day course at the gateway city to one of the top three dive sites in the world.3 The last three days of our class, we would not only be diving on the Great Barrier Reef, we would be living on it. After completing our open water dive (the final step of certification), we'd then be sleeping, eating, and living on the boat, doing up to four additional dives just one day past our certification.
Our class spots were reserved; the class was even paid for by an extremely generous gift from a loved one that came with the instruction: "treat yourself to a trip you wouldn't otherwise be able to afford." Needless to say, we were very excited for this.4
Yesterday, Monday, we got up early and began our class. We both passed the first three self-measurement quizzes with flying colors (being good test-takers, both of us), but before we could actually do anything in the pool, we had to take what we thought was a cursory, run-of-the-mill, "dive medical." Five minutes in, the physician nixed Chad's medical clearance on account of his heart murmur. No considerations, no exceptions, game over.5
Never mind that Chad's own doctor, the head of cardiology at the University of Michigan, has repeatedly assured him that the murmur imposed no restrictions whatsoever on physical activities. Never mind that Chad has passed a dive medical in the US even with his lifelong condition. Never mind that Chad has even been scuba diving before, with no ill effects.6 Never mind that the chances of the thing happening that the doctor here says might happen7 is, we suspect, equally likely to happen to someone without a heart murmur... and, we suspect, far less likely than any number of very rare life-threatening injuries or incidents that can occur to anyone while diving. Never mind all that-- no diving for us. Not here and now, at least.8
So, yesterday afternoon and most of today we have been moping, still stunned, with no backup plan. Cairns is a tourist city-- like Key West, Florida, but without the local color. We never meant to spend more than half-days here, and now already we are tired of it. We still want to see the Reef-- after all, that's why we're here-- but we're not sure if we can really enjoy going on a snorkeling trip with a boat full of divers... and that's the only way you can do it, here in Cairns.
The same company we had booked for the class and boat trip offered us a live-aboard trip as snorkelers at a discounted price. (We were both fully refunded the cost of the SCUBA class we couldn't take.) Swallowing our pride, we went to them this afternoon to book spots on the same boat we would have taken with the class. Those spots were gone, but we could get spots on a similar boat leaving a day later. We agreed, but by then the terms of the deal had changed. By this point, we were so frustrated and disappointed with everything, we were almost ready to throw our hands up and go home.9
Fortunately, the fact that Cairns is driven by the backpacker's market to an unbelievable degree10 finally played in our favor on this count. There are no less than half a dozen dive companies in Cairns, and any of them could offer us a similar snorkeling trip. All that ProDive had was us in their office. So, they bent some rules and got the owner's okay to get us the deal we'd been offered for the Wednesday trip applied to the Thursday trip. So, off we go, a day later...
...which means that we have an extra day tomorrow in this hot city we're tired of, and one less day afterwards to explore the surrounding areas by campervan. We'll get to see the Reef, though, and we'll get to live on a boat. And we're trying to make the best of our schedule change. Tomorrow, we'll take a scenic railway
through the rainforest and a cable-car gondola11 back over it,
with a few hours to spend at an aboriginal "cultural park" run by the traditional owners of the area that is now Cairns. So, we're trying to get back on track...
;)
- D
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NOTES
1Which is not to say that we did not actually forget anything, just that it's unlikely that we would. Of course, we did forget things...
2Yes, I said four to five times the amount of stuff we brought with us to Australia. Where does it come from? I think it breeds.
3In other words, the legendary Great Barrier Reef. (What, you thought I was going to tell you what the other two best sites in the world are?)
4D will admit to being just a teensy weensy bit anxious about it, too, but in the end her being a certification junkie won out.
5Similarly, diabetics are also considered "permanently unfit" to dive in the state of Queensland.
6In college at MIT, he took a semester-long dive class but was unable to complete the final open water dive in Boston's winter weather and so never completed his certification.
7If you care, he claimed that an air bubble that materilized in his lungs during decompression could pass through the hole to the heart... or something like that...
8Queensland has some of the strictest restrictions on diving in the world, but they only seem to apply to clearance to take a dive class. So, if you have your certification already, it's entirely possible that you can go diving here anyway, especially if you don't need to rent equipment, and maybe even if you do.
9Not necessarily Sydney or Michigan or New Jersey, although any one of those spots would have done.
10Hostels, motels, corner stores, and probably random guys on the street get a 20%
commission for every tour or dive class that they book. The culture that has emerged is one in which competition is cutthroat, planning ahead can actually cost you more
(because you don't get the in-the-moment deals and discounts)
, and places of accommodation charge you extra fees if you do not book something--
anything-- through them.
11Think amusement parks and the cable ways that go up over them from one end of the park to the other.
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