Sharking in Exy

Aussies love to abbreviate words. Any words, but especially places. Fremantle is Freo, Brisbane is Brizzy, Tasmania is Tassie, Exmouth is Exy. The list goes on. I have fully settled into daily life here, which is a little crazy. I arrived on the 23rd of June, it's the morning of July 24th here (still 23rd at home!) and I feel at least a little more sure of what I'm doing these days. When I got to town, my friend Corinne and I were looking for an apartment together. That officially fell through and since town is basically booked out for the next few months with Western Australians who are happy to spend their days in 80 degree heat up here instead of the 40s down in Perth, it's not looking like we'll find something else anytime soon. Since I have several co-workers who are still living in campgrounds or sleeping on couches, I'm reaaaaally glad to be living with Sandra and David.

Dave's dad, Rob, came home from work a bit early one day last week when I was making dinner so I fed him. We had a lovely chat about my eating habits (mostly vegetarian but definitely still eat meat when it's served to me) and I've since come home to hot dinner, courtesy of Rob and his mad skills, two nights this week. He made lasagna one night and made two pans of it so that mine could be meat-free. Seriously, what a sweetheart. All three of my housemates are wonderful humans and really good housemates, so I'm very glad to be here. Only more glad when I think of the campgrounds I could be living at instead!

I'm still bar tending 6 days a week, and I've settled into a routine of working on the whaleshark boats on Sundays. I go sharking in the morning, scramble around to get that job finished and be at the Potshot in usually less than 20 minutes in time for my dinner-to-close shift. It makes for a very long day, but having a short gap between the two jobs actually makes it easier, I think, because my body just remains in go-go-go mode instead of having a chance to rest and actually FEEL tired. It means that church hasn't happened in a long time (there's one mass per weekend here because there's only one priest in the whole region of several hundred square miles and it rotates between Sat night and Sun morning), but I figure spending the morning in God's creation will tide me over until that's an option on the table again. I had Thursday off from Potshot because of a training I had to do for the dive shop, so I also went out yesterday! Such a gorgeous day. Swam with two different sharks, watched humpback whales playing (including a mama teaching her calf how to breach - jump out of the water and splash - for a good 15 minutes. Incredible!), didn't get sunburnt. Good good day.

One of the perks of my dive shop is that they send along a professional photographer on every trip so that people can pay attention to swimming with the sharks instead of trying to figure out how to take underwater photos with them and missing moments. We include the photos in the cost of the day, and I snagged some photos that my co-worker friend Sara Barbieri took. Which is super convenient because my photos wouldn't hold a candle to these. So these are the critters I'm getting paid to take people swimming with!!!

Whale shark

Most of the sharks we swim with are juveniles... this one was only about 5 meters long

Each shark has unique spot patterns that researchers use to track their movements - there's still SO much we don't know about them

My first day swimming with manta rays and I got to swim with TWO!

See the sea turtle swimming just above the manta??!

It's magical up here, y'all.

Today is Friday so it'll be a long one. I've got a lunch/dinner split shift at Potshot, and Friday nights are always hectic. Same for tomorrow. And then Sunday, back out on the water with these beauties!!!