The Ups and Downs of Work

The pictures interspersed are photos from work. For the paired photos, the first photo is the unedited, the second is “autobalanced” via Photoshop (and sometimes blurred as well). Derek showed me the autobalance command, and as you can see, it really improves the quality of the underwater shots. Keep in mind that these pictures have had their resolution reduced greatly at the expense of quality, so the “real” ones look quite a bit better.




[Angelfish]

This past week has been a bit rocky at work. My work week started out finding out that two guides, Kevin and Luis, got in a bad car accident over the weekend. Luis broke his shoulder and sliced up his head, while Kevin broke his neck (!!!) and got his face very scraped up. Fortunately, it seems that Kevin has no nerve damage. I will definitely miss Kevin… he was the most cheerful guy at work, and he went out of his way to make us newbies feel at home. Hopefully he will fully recover, but from what I hear he will probably have some serious scarring on his face.




[Caribbean Spiny Lobster. Outside the Sanctuary would = Dinner... mmmmmmm]

Anyway, on top of that, CD sales have been pretty mediocre, averaging 3 CDs per trip. This means that I didn’t make much money, which sucks; as I put in the same amount of effort regardless of the number of CDs I sell (I don’t find out who is buying until the very end of the tour). Also, one of the lead guides got in a shouting match with the office manager (after the guests left) which is never pretty.



[Blueclawed Caribbean Crab]

Today I managed to hurt myself three times on the tour, which always takes the fun out of things… first I slipped on Cas Cay on some coral debris, cutting my toe, then I slipped in a dingy and scrapped my shin, getting down to the nice white skin fat layer, then I managed to hit myself in the head with my camera (long story), getting a nice bump on my head. Needless to say, not the best trip for Dave. Barry the adult barracuda (~5 ft long) was cruising around the lagoon while we were snorkeling, I wonder if he was trying to find the source of blood in the water (me).



[Barry, the 5ft Barracuda]

On the upside, photography will be working a bit differently at work. For the next month, we are doing a trial where the photographer gets paid as a guide, and the proceeds from the CD sales and the guide tips are split among all the guides. This is nice because it levels out my income a little, and it makes it so the guides have a much greater incentive to work with, rather than against, the photographers (since they get a cut of the CD sales now too). I should make slightly more money overall, plus on slow days, it really helps me. For example, today we had a tour of 10 comprised of only 2 families, which means I only sold 2 CDs. Normally that would mean I barely made any money, but I also got guide pay (which is worth about 3 CDs) and a share of the tips (another CD worth) in exchange for splitting my measly 2 CD sale with the lead guide. So instead of 2 CDs worth of income I got 5 CDs worth of income, plus the guide is happy because he makes about the same amount plus he has me to help during the tour.



[Filter feeding polyp]



[Pirates]

Other events of the week… Kendra made dinner last weekend. She made a yummy coconut shrimp and jasmine rice dish which was good. In addition, she made an excellent ice cream pie dessert. The ice cream pie had (past tense, it is all gone) an Oreo cookie crust, vanilla ice cream with crushed peppermint candies and marshmallow bits. It was very delicious.



[Rainbow File Fish]

The garden is coming along okay… green beans, basil, corn, horned melon, water melon and honey dew melon are all doing well (only green beans have yielded food so far, but the others are growing well). Unfortunately the mysore raspberries, guava and papaya have yet to sprout. Hopefully they come up soon.



[Squirrel Fish]