Cricket, DM Coursework, and Snorkeling with Sea Lions

Y'all. It has been a busy few days. It's 7:50pm here as I begin to write this and I'm planning to crash to sleep as soon as it's finished. Begin at the beginning I suppose: I went to my first ever cricket match on Friday! I went with one of my flatmates, Weibke, who is a German girl here on the same visa as me. She's really lovely, had also never seen cricket played, and was on board with going as a cultural experience ("and we can always drink beer if it's terrible" - my kinda girl).

Weibke + Me @ Optus Stadium

Optus Stadium

We had essentially no idea what was going on at any given moment but pieced together some bits by the end of the game (match? I dunno). Anyway, the beer was cold.

Saturday and Sunday were early mornings at the scuba shop. I learned that one of the women who works in the shop lives about 3 minutes drive from me in the same suburb and she EVER so kindly offered to drive me in on days when I also have to be there. SO great because it saves me a solid 40 minutes in the morning, and we all know how well I operate in the mornings! So Nat (short for Natalie) drove me in both days and my Dive Master (DM) course began. There are three dudes in my class: a Welshman, an Aussie with Polish dual-citizenship, and an 18 year old Aussie. The shop manager started calling our class the Olympics and asking who won each days' games because we're quite so international in flavor. All three guys are lovely and Day 1 was held with the same instructor as last week, Kayla the badass who takes shit from no one (still true). She ran us ragged, doing long timed swims in the pool without fins, with fins, while towing each other in full kit (kit = equipment = your full scuba rig), so when I got home I decided the time was ripe for me to discover my local pub.

Confirmed: they call bottle shops the bottle-o in actual fact, not just on the internet

I met a couple from the neighborhood, Lawrence and Christine, who are actually British and Corsican ex-pats living here now. They've lived ALL over the world due to Lori's work in the petroleum industry, including Alaska, and were totally fascinating to chat with. We were the only three people in the bar all night, so the three of us and the two bar tenders just hung out and talked travel, living around the world (bar tenders were both Aussies though one has dual citizenship in Canada and her family has moved back and forth a few times over the course of her life), and arguing about whether global warming is, in fact, occurring. They have a dog named Panda who I am hoping to encounter at the park sometime if the universe aligns, and I told them about how the only physical photo I brought with me is of Bailey so then we swapped dog stories and photos. It was wonderful. I left around 9:30, exhausted and with another long day ahead.

Day 2 had a new instructor, Ian, who reminded me uncannily of Geoffrey Rush in The King's Speech. I told him that at the pub after class, obviously, and I was rewarded with a brief lesson in how to Rock'n'Roll style dance (there are actual steps. I was unaware.).

Nat, my neighbor/friend from the shop/chauffeur, asked me over the weekend whether I'd like to join a group that was going snorkeling with sea lions on Monday and I obviously couldn't pass that up. So that's what I did today! We went up to Jurian Bay, about 2.5 hours north of Perth, and snorkeled with an outfit called Turquoise Safaris. The staff was amazing, the music was bumpin, and we had such a blast, all around. High temp was 80 today, so amazing temps for being out on the water in a boat. The outfit provided wetsuits, too, so it was great to be covered up from the sun a bit more (the ozone layer is particularly thin over Western Australia, apparently, so it's VERY easy to get burned here. I've been using SPF 55 for my daily moisturizer every day).

Me, Jack (the Welsh guy in my DM class), the boat Captain, Stacey (currently working on her DM at the shop), Nat, boat first mate, Maurice (DM and boat crew for the shop)

I finally put my GoPro to use and have LOTS of amazing videos to go through of playing with the sea lions but let me just confirm for you that snorkeling with sea lions is THE COOLEST. Andrew and I went diving in San Diego before I left the States and we got to hang with some sea lions there, so that whet my appetite for it. The spot we went today was so shallow that snorkeling was WAY more effective for hanging out with the little sea pups than diving would have been. They are literally like underwater puppies. They just want to play, so if you aren't fun they leave you and find someone else. It seems like their version of fun is spiraling around and zooming around underwater, so they appreciate all efforts to duplicate their behaviors. If you just chill on the surface, they don't stick around. So I got a killer workout chasing the sea puppies around and bopping about under water with them. Best. Workout. Ever.

Jack took this AMAZING photo, so I'll whet your appetite with it while I work on getting my own videos together

The snorkel spot in Jurian Bay

After we wrapped up snorkeling, we stopped for lunch at the Sandpiper Tavern in town and then hit the road, but we made a pit-stop on the way back at the Pinnacles in Nambung National Park. The pinnacles are these limestone rock bits that poke up out of the ground over a massive area.

We hiked around for maybe a touch under an hour and then decided we were completely wiped out and needed to be getting back to home. Nat dropped me at my house and if all goes to plan, I'll be out like a light in about ten minutes!