Welcome to Tangalooma!

When was the last time your alarm clock rang at 4am? (Uhm, ours probably some day in the past on which we traveled on very cheap airfare…) But anyways, it felt like the middle of the night and the very slow and gloomy dawn was not helping to create a get-up-and-get-‘em attitude. After rolling out of bed, into clothes and actually managing to make an army of English muffin sandwiches, we were off - down that killer-of-a-driveway one last time and 75mins later, boarding the ferry to Tangalooma Island Resort.

Here we go! Tired and excited.

The ride over to the island was bit over an hour, during which we would have loved to just sleep… But instead we watched choppy television and an info video on the resort and all the activities it offers.

Day 1: Island Induction

It was a pretty gray day, so we weren’t welcomed by Tangalooma in all it’s splendor, but we were greeted by a large amount of their current majority of guests (waiting to get on the return trip of our ferry) – a jetty full of Chinese!

...and these guys.

The jetty (on a nicer day).

After our induction with HR – a session of endless initials, signatures and dates, handbooks, manuals and questionnaires – we got into a buggy and drove around the resort. You can tell that it has been around for a while, as there are many different types of accommodation and building styles that were added on over the years. Everything from hotel rooms, to apartments and villas. After that informative joyride behind the scenes that left me slightly disoriented, we settled into our room.

Our street. Our hood.

Our room.

Cozy, hotel-style, ensuite and with our own balcony! What more could we ask for? After a much needed nap and some unpacking, we met one of the Food and Beverage managers and went through a(nother, this time) short and sweet induction.

The rest of the day was ours to spend as we please. We explored the resort on foot and walked from one end (the jetty) to the other (villas), passing the activity centers, restaurants, pools and an old whaling station that was converted into a covered basketball/table tennis court. Tangalooma used to be one of the major whaling stations in Australia before it was made illegal. In the cold months, they offer whale watching in Moreton Bay, as Humpbacks migrate through the area.

And of course, after dinner in the staff room, we headed down to the beach and watched the famous wild dolphin feeding. Like clockwork, up to 11 bottlenose dolphins come up to shore every evening around 7:15 to be handfed by guests (who paid to do so in advance). They are still wild dolphins and only receive around 10-20% of their daily requirement of food from the resort. It’s quite the spectacle to see them splash around in the shallows and slalom around the legs of the resort’s dolphin feeders and guests. There were even some young ones around, that weren’t being fed, but had fun swimming circles around their parents/aunts/uncles.

A dolphin! Yay!

Back to Work!

Luckily, we were being eased into work and the roster showed me working between 12nn and 4pm and Mo from 6:30pm till 9:30pm. A so-called “floating” shift. What exactly that is, we found out after our first night in our new “home”. It is definitely going to take some time to get used to fixed hours for meals and making sure you actually have a meal before you go to work. Lunch at 11am, dinner at 5pm? But you take what and when you can get it.

Getting ready for the first time was hilarious. Me in a white button down business shirt? Tucked into black business pants? With black leather shoes? And with only one earring per ear?? And a watch on my wrist??? Top that off with a black apron and a little name tag that says “Rosanna” and I felt like a me in an alternate universe.

"Welcome to Tangalooma! May we clear your table?" (We don't actually have to say that.)

So what exactly is a “floating” shift? Basically a bus-boy. I cleared dishes, cleaned tables, took out trash, made everything look neat and tidy, polished cutlery and dried dishes. Not the most exciting first day at work, but then again, I didn’t really expect it to be. And hey, after 3,5 months of mangoes, this is easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy :) I was glad I didn’t drop too many knives or break any plates – highlight of my day! And basically, after an early dinner, Mo went off and did the same.

Day two had me confronted with a P&O day, meaning a cruise ship was parked in front of the resort and its guests filled our dining areas like ants on a picnic blanket. And also day three, a Saturday, was quite busy. But with only a few hours here and there, I still couldn’t really consider it work. And that was our first week.

With so much time on our hands, these first days felt like a vacation (with some disruptions). We have time to read books, sleep enough, I even hopped back on a yoga mat every evening! The hours between my finishing and Mo starting his shift, we hung out in the room or on the beach, still talking about how things here are going to be.

Under our umbrella.

Some of the many tables. Our new best friends.

At least we get to work with a view.

Work it, baby!

Days Off. What to do, what to do?

Days came and days went. I guess it takes time to find your place in a place like this. We found ourselves with 4 days off in a row and no idea how to spend them.  We did however got up in time to catch breakfast for the first time on “Superbowl Monday Morning” and then watched the game in the bar, along with 3 other guests ( - shows how interested people here are in Football).

Just chillin'. Balcony style.

The most obvious thing to do with free time here is exploring the beach. The sand here is white and soft and the water turquoise and inviting. 

Our front yard.

Days off are awesome.

From the resort’s beach front, you can walk all the way down to a spot where people can camp. Being the world’s third largest sand island, Moreton Island – the entire island being a national park - invites guests to bring their 4-wheel-drives and discover it on their own. At the tip of our bay lie the Tangalooma wrecks – 15 vessels that were deliberately sunken to create a break wall and artificial reef. They’ve been there since 1963 and have apparently attracted quite the marine life. During the weekend, private boats anchor around there and encircle the rusty brown with their gleaming white.

They also make a great backdrop for the red hot sunsets here that paint the skies every evening.

The Tangalooma Wrecks. 

After taking a long beach walk one afternoon, we decided to pack a bag and spend the next day out there. Halfway there we realized that we forgot to bring snorkel gear, but since the day was kind of overcast, we didn’t bother turning back and just hung out in a little alcove in the dunes and built a sandcastle instead.

It ended up being a half-the-afternoon-trip instead of a day trip, because without any shade, we were afraid to end up crispy burnt and headed back when we felt we were sufficiently sun-kissed (meaning me black and Mo red)

.

That evening, we caught the last moments of a grayish sunset and watched the dolphins again. This time around, they got playful and started hunting little baitfish right off the shore. Jetting back and forth on their backs, snapping at the jumping snack they were chasing. Being so close to them is just too cool and there is just something fascinating about these creatures. Like their intelligence – exceeding ours, in my opinion – radiates from them as they glide by, popping their head out to check out the ogling crowd.

Apocalyptic sunset. (I have yet to have my camera on me during one of the nicer ones. I promise to post a typical Tangalooma sunset asap.)

Dolphin feeding time.

Week 2 

A new week. A new roster. More hours. New duties.

Next to floating, our second week has brought us some new duties, such as the buffet in the Tursiops restaurant. Which, in addition to much more cleaning, means making sure everything is filled up and setting up for the next buffet afterwards.

After my first day working the lunch and the dinner buffet, I had a little personal conflict to deal with. I know that buffets are a wasteful event, but being an eye-witness to the amounts of food that are thrown away at the end of the night made me realize the extent of that waste. It is quite sad and it really got to me. In my opinion, throwing away cheesecake, chocolate cake or any other form of sweet pleasure should be made downright illegal anyways! I had already noticed that vast amounts of food are thrown away on a daily basis just by clearing tables and noticing how much gets left on them, but buffets are really another level.

Another little something something this new job has reveled to me is the stark cultural difference in table manners between how I was raised and – without judgment or racism or trying to make use of clichés – the Chinese. At the moment, as Australian school holidays are over, Asian tour groups make up most of our guests during the week. I’ve had two school groups of Chinese kids and adults at the Buffet and their private dining room sounded like an orchestra of chewing (mouths wide open). Due to being brought up in a society in which that is frowned upon, the sheer volume of chewing in that room gave me goosebumps and made me cringe. And being the one cleaning up after them, I experience first hand (literally, since I use my hands) a magnitude of messiness I have not witnessed before. Some tables I come across, I have to pause and take it all in, not knowing where to begin. Shrimp heads and fruit peels covering every surface of the table, a layer of used napkins covering them, cutlery and chopsticks for twice the amount of people that sat there and empty sachets of self-provided spices, preserved vegetables and wet wipes to top it off. And usually quite a bit of food left over as well.

The Japanese on the other hand either clean their table and neatly stack everything or even bring me their dishes.

“Always wear a smile on your face.” Politeness is important in the service industry. As of now, the only interaction I have with guests is:” Excuse me, may I clear your plate?”. And for some strange reason, I have a habit of thanking people when they say yes. Might have something to do with the fact that cleaning tables is quite boring, time passes VERY slowly and you are glad when there is something to do. But it does sound quite funny, when I get into a thank-you-battle with guests – I thank them for being able to clear their table, they thank me for clearing their table, I thank them for handing me a plate, they thank me for wiping their table, I thank them…for no real reason at all. I have now set myself the goal to just say: ”You’re welcome” next time and be done with it.

At the end of the day, this job is nothing I could do my whole life (or even for an extended period of time), but it is eye-opening and humbling and it has enabled me to take a peak behind the scenes of yet another industry. And for that I will always cherish this experience, no matter now much my feet hurt right now, after a 6:45 breakfast buffet call and an afternoon cleaning up after cruise ship guests and Asian tour groups. At least now I definitely know, that the tourism I want to work in is a whole ‘nother ballgame ;)

…and now I’m going to enjoy my day off! :)

Here are some more impressions of our new home/work/playground. Enjoy!