In-Season

Well, folks, the tourist season has definitely arrived in Exmouth. Town has been chockers (I love this Aussie-ism... short for chock-a-block... pronounced "choccas") for the last month and I've been busy, busy, busy! My roster is pretty consistent these days, and I'm officially training as a Duty Manager at the Pub. That means I've been working longer days but only 5 per week (unlike before, when I might end up working 6 days of shorter shifts or lots of split shifts - lunch shift, two hour break, dinner shift to close). I'm mostly getting Sunday/Monday as my days off, so it's been great being available to work on the boats as they need. Since Memorial Day Weekend (last weekend in May, for my Aussie readers), I've worked nearly every week on the boats. One week I worked on both of my days off and was knackered but it was so worth it! Swimming with whalesharks doesn't get old, y'all. 

Two weeks ago I didn't get rostered to work on the boats on my days off from the Pub and wasn't sure how I was going to use my time. But then Stewie told me about The Pilbara Men's Darts Association annual tournament happening! This was Exmouth's year to host, and the Trussy needed extra bar staff to cover shifts at the bar from 8am to close (sometimes as late as midnight) every day. So on my days off from tending bar at the Pub, I tended bar at the Trussy :)

The tournament ran from Monday to Friday with a casual darts day on Sunday before start. I worked Sunday and Monday from noon to close and then on Thursday I covered the bar in the morning before heading in to work at the Pub. Several evenings the competitors ended up coming along to the Pub for drinks/dinner after finishing darts for the day, so I ended up serving them drinks at both bars. When I worked an opening shift at the Pub on Wednesday and then had the evening off, I went down and watched the comp as a spectator, and Friday afternoon a bunch of my co-workers went down with me to watch more of the comp before heading to work in the afternoon. All this to say, I got to know a bunch of the competitors pretty well. At the end of the week, the Port Hedland team told me they had a surprise for me: they gave me my own team jersey! I'm under strict instructions to wear it and visit them ASAP. I wish I'd gotten a photo with them, but Ashley, Kendall, and Henry were particularly welcoming, and Molly, Henry's partner, was instrumental in the jersey mission. How fortunate am I, that these wonderful people keep popping into my life?!

Simmo, one of the PH players from the A division team

My jersey!

The temps have been remarkably chilly here for the last month, at least by Exy standards. Overnight lows have been in the single digits Celsius (mid to high 40s F) some nights, and even daytime temps haven't always gotten to more than 19 or 20C (not even 70F). COLD for here. So working out on the boat on a windy day has meant the water temps of 24 or 25C (mid 70s F) are a lot warmer than the air temps. It also has meant that having a wet head of hair keeps you colder, and when your harshly bleached hair is constantly going in and out of a beanie, it starts to fall out. All of which is to say: I am no longer a blonde.

Before

During

After

I had been talking for weeks about just buzzing my hair, so when Gaia and I were running errands one day and stopped at a friends' house where a set of hair clippers just happened to be plugged in and ready to go it felt like a dare from the universe. "So, Kate, did you ACTUALLY want to shave your head?" Time to put my money where my mouth was and just do it.

I don't think my days as a blonde are really over, though we'll see what happens. I think if I go for it again, I'll pay for a visit to the hair salon rather than risk more cooked hair. I was just so tired of having dry, brittle hair, so now I'm back to the good healthy stuff, even if it is a bit short! It's been funny seeing folks' reactions. Lots of people don't recognize me as a brunette (as Mitch put it: it's not the length that threw him off, it was the color change) - I'd been blonde for 6 months! So the last week has been really fun, riding around town incognito. Number one most heard comment? "You have a nicely shaped head!" Who knew?

Cheers to Gaia, an amazing flatmate who encourages all my best ideas!

On Monday night, I finally got to do a night dive on the Navy Pier! Gaia and I went, along with two of our co-workers from the Pub, Bruno and Dani, and had the best time. I had to get a new diving mask a few weeks back because the one I've had since I was 16 and learning to scuba dive fell off the marlin board when I was working on the shark boat. It was sad to lose a sentimental mask, but mostly it was a headache to find a new one that didn't leak when I smile under water! Since I use my mask on the Ningaloo Reef, that means I'm basically always smiling. Not helpful. So, after a mission around town, Gaia and I found one that fit, but new masks frequently have fogging issues. You have to treat them by scrubbing off a film the manufacturers spray on there to keep the tempered glass scratch-free while shipping. I must not have gotten all the film off because my mask was fogging like craaaazzyyyyyy during the dive. Extra un-helpful when you're diving at night in the pitch black. Extra, extra unhelpful when you're diving with a 2.2m (7ft+), 400kg (880lb) fish aptly named the Big Friendly Grouper. 

He's lived here for decades and back in the day the dive operators would feed him, so he's VERY friendly to divers under the Pier. In my other 4 dives on the Pier, I didn't ever see him. I saw other large groupers, but not the BFG. But let me tell you, he's extra friendly during night dives. He uses the flashlights from divers to hunt, so he hangs out around the divers a LOT. Gaia and I were late returning from the dive because he herded us away from the Pier into shallower water where he could hunt more easily using our torch lights and we were having so much fun watching him that we lost track of time. I get paid to swim with the largest fish in the sea, whalesharks, but this fish was something else. He has no respect for personal space and just swims right up to you, nudging and bumping you and looking for chin scratches. Like a horse thinking he's a lap dog. 

This is my friend Wes, my old co-worker at Perth Scuba, with the BFG years ago when he worked as a dive guide on the Navy Pier

His eyeballs are nearly the size of my fist, so when he's 6 inches from your face and your mask is a little foggy, it's a bit disconcerting. I'm so keen to get out for another dive with him, but I'll be doing some more mask defogging first!

My planned road trip through the Kimberley in August is taking shape quite nicely. Jess, Gaia, Andrew, and Mia are all coming along, so we're gonna have three cars for the journey. Mia and Andrew are planning to continue east - back home to Sydney - after we drive the Gibb River Road, so they'll go in their car, but Jess and I always wanted to have two cars along in case of something going awry on our travels. Because the road is unsealed, you go into it with lots of water, jerry cans of extra fuel, and plan to be self-sufficient. So we've mapped out a month-long trip that takes us east to Broome, then Derby where the GRR starts, along the Gibb to Kunnunara, down to the Bungle Bungles in Purnululu National Park, and wraps up at Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater, the 2nd largest meteorite impact crater in the world and setting of an iconic Aussie horror film about a serial killer going after backpackers (Mia, bless her, is committed to watching this movie while we're there). From Wolfe Creek, Mia and Andrew will continue east and Jess, Gaia and I will make a bee-line back to Exmouth! 

The Kimberley region is what my dear readers will imagine when they think of the Australian Outback. It's deep river gorges, crocodiles, red rocks and wide open spaces. I am SO excited to go and explore it for a few weeks, and so pumped to get to do it with some of the great friends I've made up here in Exmouth. We had a little planning meeting last Sunday to figure out where we'll stop and camp along the way, so it's feeling really real now. All that's left to do is hope that the latest Covid outbreaks in Oz don't derail us! Planned departure is for July 27th, so we've got some time yet. Fingers crossed!!!

Was about to post when one of the neighbors dropped by for a visit... what a place, huh?