July 2014 on the Great Barrier Reef

Where Will You Be?
Captain Trevor Jackson

I used to do this exercise in my head each day, wondering where I would be at an exact point in time in the future. Why don’t you try it now…where will you be say next Tuesday at 10:45am? Chances are your answer didn’t impress you much. Maybe you said “At my desk”, or “In the car on the way to another meeting”, or “Stuck in traffic”. At least those were the type of answers I used to give. Problem was it never changed.

If I asked you where you would be the following Tuesday at 10:45am, it’s extremely likely the answer would be the same. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing…work can be good, routine can be good, but so can change sometimes. Change reminds us that we are alive. Now I can hear the doubters “What would this guy know, he swans around on a dive boat all year having fun” but the reality is that it matters not whether you’re a truck driver or a doctor or the guy that holds the stop go sign…routine is routine and we all need a break from it.

Now what prompted me to write about this is that I just did my little exercise and I didn’t know the answer. The question was “Where will you be at midday on the 5th of every month for the rest of the year?” I was fine until I got to September…and then a funny thing happened…I didn’t know. The routine, once September comes around, goes out the door. In September we go off the grid.

Starting on the 4th of that month, then pretty much once a month until well into 2015, we are pointing the boat north and to a large degree, letting the chips fall where they may. Sure there’s a rough plan: “Explore the Far Northern Barrier Reef”, or “Discover the Shipwrecks of Torres Straits” but nought is set in stone. It’s pure diving adventure. The kind of thing that shrugs off the cumbersome cloak of work day routine and reminds us that life is for living. Why don’t you give it a try? ‘Where will you be on the…….?”

Rogues Gallery: