New year, New adventures

A light programming note to begin: I've finally put some effort into figuring out how to add a subscription link back to my blog! So thank you to my regular readers who've stuck with me while the old email subscription thing ended ages ago and never quite re-started, and who can now choose to not re-subscribe if all my musings and ramblings have bored you!! But if they haven't, looking forward to you seeing photos of me living my Australian life and growing my hair back in real time :)

The first six weeks of 2023 have been a wild ride, team. I camped on Blue Jay in the islands of the Exmouth Gulf (twice), and caught frogs and baby snakes in Broome. I started a new job, turned down a couple of others, and accepted one for the upcoming season to begin in March. I have spent lazy afternoons reading by pools and on the beach, and have tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to get back into good exercise habits. I now have regular coffee dates with the retired couple next door, Stewie and Marnie, who I'm pretty sure think that I can't feed myself with how often they text me to say they've got meat pies for me for dinner, just come round and pick them up. And just in the last week, Matty and I decided to do a spontaneous trip to Thailand, leaving on Sunday, because we both find ourselves with time to spare. Let's start back at my return to Exmouth...

So I flew home to Exmouth on Weds, 4 Jan. The 5th was spent researching the heck out of visa stuff. I'd gotten an invitation from the state of Western Australia to apply for sponsorship while I was in Victoria with Jess but I wanted to make sure I understood the fine print before I proceeded. After a full day of delving into details, I went for it. Application submitted, now I've just gotta wait to hear back! If I am very, very lucky (and regular readers of this blog know that I have exceedingly good luck in all the ways that matter and none of the ways that are related to winning the lottery), I will be on a pathway towards permanent residency in Australia. That would give me working rights here for the long haul, and the chance to choose to live here for as long as I want, whenever I want, or to split my time between here and the US. That's the goal.

Friday the 6th I spent pretending I didn't know anyone in town except Gaia (who I caught up with at the beach and then immediately abandoned to return home to the air con and reading my book and speaking to no one). 

Saturday morning Matty decided to remind me that he exists because, bless him, he listened when I said I didn't want to talk to anyone at all (Gaia is always the exception to this rule), and we went out on Blue Jay to have breakfast on the Gulf. Literally he called in the morning and said "weather looks great and I was going to cook you breakfast but why don't we just do that on the back deck of Blue Jay?" and away we went. Man, my life is cool.

A pair of suspicious ospreys we passed when we fueld up Blue Jay

The week was a whirlwind of settling back into town now that my self-induced hibernation was over. I needed a job, though I wasn't committed to working more than strictly necessary to pay pesky things like the rent. That worked out faster than I anticipated. A fish and chips shop that opened up in town mid-way through last seasason was in need of staff. The owner, Glen, had posted on the local community Facebook page that anyone interested should give him a call. When I rang, we clicked pretty well and about ten minutes later I had plans to work the next day as a fish and chips girl. 

Some observations: wrapping the fish and chips neatly is an art AND a science; 14 year old co-workers can be outrageously supportive of teaching someone twice their age how to do nearly everything; fryer grease in the air makes for a fabulous hot oil treatment - my hair has seldom beeon so soft and luxurious as in the past month. And Zane, my teenaged gamer co-worker who so genuinely meant it when he complimented my phone skills my first day at the shop, continues to support me learning how not to screw up orders in a frenetic food joint. And I don't have to deal with drunks at work anymore! It's been really good. 

Matty skurfing (that is, surfing while being towed) off the back of Blue Jay with Lissi and Rose 

Captain Lissi

Rose & Matty in the fly bridge, Pipes and me on the bow, before scuba diving off South Muiron Island

Wife date with Gaia on the ski before she left me for a visit back home to Italy

We've had some really lovely days out on the water in the last 6 weeks. Random after work afternoon cruises, weekends diving and fishing, seeing who's free and wants to be on the water. It's gotten so hot that the water is a welcome respite. This is the Catch-22 of an Exmouth summer: the wind keeps things cool, but makes boating hard. When the wind dies off it's blazing hot but the water is more pleasant for surface activities. Surfers hate the summers here because the breeze either flattens the surf or the swell is so low as to be non-existant. Good thing I'm not much of a surfer :)

Emus joined us for cocktails at Mantarays...

... Mel wasn't impressed.

After our first overnight trip on Blue Jay a few months back was such a disaster (high winds, anchor chain threatening to bang a hole in the boat from smashing against the hull, seasick Kate, sleepless Matty), we've been waiting for a good weather weekend to come along so we could try again. When the weather came up as full glamour for a full weekend, Matty took a day off from work so we could go and make a proper trip of it. Three full days, two nights up in the islands, fishing, spearing, snorkeling, and, unexpectedly, gathering oysters! Thanks to Matty's co-worker Paddy, we had a bag full of fresh limes from the tree in his yard, so our dinners of oysters and grilled fish were seasoned with local produce, too. 

a passing sea snake

Matty's contribution to dinner

Matty's other contribution to dinner

I'm sure it seems like I contributed nothing, and that's correct, but I did drive the boat and wash the dishes. Surely that counts for something?

Eight Bar Cod

A bronze whaler we caught and let go

Goldband snapper to fill the freezer at home

We found a prawn hanging out by the boat, but we didn't eat him for dinner

Cold front

Looking for turtle hatchlings on Long Island

Blue Jay

Not all the Mama Turtles make it back to the water after laying their eggs

The tender gave us some difficulties, but we worked it all out in the end

We swam to shore to watch this Mama Turtle covering her eggs with sand, then we swam back to eat breakfast and watch her make her way back to the water undisturbed

I went for a week's road trip to Broome to celebrate Australia Day and Kieran's birthday. This is the cool thing about having pals all over the state: always someone to visit! We adventured between rain storms, catching critters and swimming, both at Cable Beach and a very creative pool of Kieran's making. 

stormy driving

got my choccy milk fix in Karratha

Nearly ran this fella over in the dark

made it to Cable Beach!

Out catching frogs after a rain storm

sunset bush walks

Cable Beach sunset

Birthday lightning show for Kieran!

These dudes hung out underneath the hose all week and were my friends

Pressure washing the Loader bucket...

... filling the loader with water...

... and enjoying the new swimming pool!

In my pool

He was chuffed (NB: quite pleased) with the result. "I might do this every weekend"

Teensy froggy friend

Back home in Exmouth, the weather was shaping up for another beautiful weekend to camp in the islands. When I got home, we scooped up Scotty and Lissi and made our way out to the islands. We did an afternoon of fishing, camping, and laughing, and then Mich and Kim joined us the next day on their boat for more of the same. It turned into a series of unfortunate events: their boat had some critical issues (broken radio and GPS); Kim got hooked when a tuna jumped into the boat and the second hook on the lure bit into his thumb; Matty nearly got run over when he jumped into the water to go help Kim remove the hook and their motors were NOT, in fact, in neutral; and our freezer crapped out. So after a full day of fishing, we decided to just navigate home in the dark rather than risk losing our entire catch. 

I drove home, the boys fileted the fish, and Lissi packed it all up so that the 34 year old beer fridge, an Engel (to my American readers: it's a legendary brand of car fridge... they never die) could be repurposed into a fish freezer to make sure our weekend of efforts wasn't in vain. We missed the second night of camping, but after all our misadventures of the day, I think everyone was happy to just head home. 

Lissi had the first Spanish Mackerel of the day

Scotty had the biggest one 

Post-fileting

The next day was a sleepy one

This week has been a wild ride, too. Monday's Superbowl loss was a tough pill to swallow. Matty planned to stay home from work for just the morning, but ended up calling in sick and napping all afternoon while I hung out with our friends John and Angie by the pool. 

On Tuesday, his boss flew into town and made him redundant. Rather than get upset about it (he'd seen the writing on the wall), he said "well let's just take a holiday!" The fish and chips shop is closed for a few weeks because town is so quiet, so Glen is taking a well-deserved break before the silly season begins. Since Matty and I are both fun-employed, we're going to Thailand! We did play with the idea of doing a roadtrip closer to home but 1. diesel is so expensive 2. the summer heat makes camping uncomfortable unless we go WAY south, but even then it's hit or miss and 3. flights to Asia from Perth can be gotten for less than $500 AUD, round trip. So my next blog post will almost certainly be filled with a LOT more gushing about delicious food, but hopefully more of the same gushing about beautiful time spent on the water. Wish me safe travels!