Busy, Busy, Busy

 **NB: the title of this blog post should be sung to the tune of "Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)" by ABBA which Australians are shockingly fond of. You hear the original version in bars and nightclubs all the time because they don't need to do a remix... the original is already perfect.**

So I mentioned in my Christmas post that my boss at the dive shop has remembered that I'm an employee of his. The last three weeks I've worked 2-3 days a week on the boat plus my normal 5-6 days a week at the pub. With summer school holidays in full swing, town has been busy with visitors (apparently far more than usual this time of year) and both jobs have required a lot of physical and mental energy. Weeks like these make me extra grateful that caffeine is a super drug in my back pocket. Because I don't care for the taste of coffee, I've never drunk it. Because it's just too dang hot, I don't even drink a cuppa tea every day. So when I do drink caffeine it hits me HARD. Which has been so helpful the last few weeks because I can just have a Coke or an iced tea around 3pm and still be wired at midnight! Puppy warns people anytime she notices this late afternoon caffeination happening: "watch out, last time she had tea in the arvo (*afternoon in Aussie*) she was rapping in the bar!" But it gets me through the long days with a smile on my face and energy to spare. 

Heather and Gabie

Team North America staff day (two Americans and a Canadian) on the boat!

Turtle Bay, Muiron Islands

Getting ready to snorkel guide @ the Muiron Islands

New Years Eve was a busy, busy day. I had a plan to go out on a day of fun diving on my work boat (my bosses, bless them, let staff go for free when there's space on the boat on our days off and we just help with little odd jobs throughout the day) because I didn't start work til 5pm at the pub. I knew it would be a long day but I wanted to get in the water for a dive. That plan bit the dust when Sandra, in a panic, asked me the day before to come into work at the pub at 3pm. She was worried that it was going to be really busy and they'd be short staffed. So I agreed, spent the morning on the beach by myself soaking up the calm, and bailed on diving. Thank goodness I did because it was a 12 hour work day at the pub and it was 12 FULL ON hours. Dinner service was busier than usual and by the end of it, people from the front bar were coming out to my pool bar to get drinks. This is a bit unusual; typically drinkers stick to the front and the pool bar is families having dinner by the evening. Sandra popped out around 7 and informed me that the front bar was already hectic. By 8:30pm the whole place was at capacity. And it stayed at capacity for the rest of the night. We pushed people inside (no one wants a drunk hopping the fence into the pool and going for a swim when it's supposed to be closed and, God forbid, getting hurt), closed the pool bar, went to the front bar, and spent the next 4 hours pouring drinks as quickly as we could. 

We went through 18 cases of vodka. We stopped pouring drinks a full hour earlier than last year because we ran out. The Redbull was gone by 9pm and our owners had to call on the local gas station owners to open up (they had been closed since 11am) so we could buy out their stock of the stuff (the bar patrons cheered when they saw one of our owners wheeling a dolly-full into the bar). They also gave us all their ice because we ran out. Then we ran out of ice again, so the local tackle shop gave us theirs. By the end of the night there were about 3 cubes of ice per drink and, even at that, we were quite literally waiting for the ice machines to drop the next round of cubes so we could scrape them out of the bottom of the case. It. Was. Insane. But so so so much fun! Despite the chaotic numbers of patrons, people were so respectful and well behaved. No fights, no dramas, just lots of people ringing in the new year at the pub!

"I don't know what Seinfeld is, really, just that it's a show from the '90s" - Puppy, explaining her clothing choice for our Retro-themed NYE. My shirt, for the record, was a fuzzy sweater tank top. My hat was a gift from my co-worker Tiarna; it reads "Philadelphia Born and Raised"

Besides the busyness of both jobs, I have been, as Dad would put it, "trying to fit 10 lbs. of potatoes in a 5 lb. sack." Some of my friends from the dive job have left town in the last few weeks, so we've been doing last-minute camping trips to soak up the outdoors time. Snorkel trips off the west side have been beautiful recently, too - the weather has just been so good for it - so I've been spending my days out in the sun, enjoying the reef and the beaches that makes this place so special. 

Charles Knife Canyon at dawn

Lindsay and Princess

Chiara and Lindsay (and Prin)

Puppy and Taitgen (rhymes with Cajun) at Oyster Stacks

Me & Corinne (from an older camping trip)

Anthony & Emily

Flo

Ospreys near Bundegi Beach

Mitch & Sapphi the Staffy

All in all, it's been busy and wonderful and it's still too hot here but apparently not as hot as it normally would be. And in two weeks, in theory, I'm leaving to go to Tasmania. Assuming that they'll still let me in after traveling through some states that, as of recently, have new Covid cases. We'll see. 

Sunset clouds at the pub