Dirty Thirty

What an amazing birthday weekend I had, y'all!!!! 

August 28

Nat and Mick arrived Friday afternoon the 28th around 3:30, hung out at my house for a couple of hours and then went off to check into their accommodation. Wiebke and Weronika arrived 30 minutes later and got settled into my house. David and Sandra were super chill about them staying with us and lent me a deluxe air mattress that basically took up all the floor space in my room when inflated. I made dinner so that we wouldn't have to do anything at all if they didn't want to, which proved to be a good idea - Nat & Mick came back to eat and hang for a few hours but they were gone to bed by 9 or so and the girls had much the same idea in mind. Since I've been working nights, I was definitely not ready for bed when they all were, so when David came home and said he was going to the pub, I went, too! I now understand how much fun Fridays at the Pub are on the other side of the bar!!

August 29

Saturday morning arrived, bright and windy, so my first thought was to call and confirm that my last-dive-of-my-20s trip to the Navy Pier was a go. The woman I spoke to had a falsely cheerful voice and said she'd see me soon - it was a go! I scooped Nat and we started the long process of getting our gear loaded on their bus, receiving briefings on the regulations for the dive (the pier is on an active military base so there were so many additional rules and regulations that we had to follow for security purposes), chatting with our friend Matt (who I worked with at Perth Scuba, migrated up here to Exmouth with around the same time in March, and who now works for the dive outfit that runs the Navy Pier dive site) and then driving up to the site. We get there and, lo and behold, that wind was whipping. The whole Gulf was filled with whitecaps and the surge against the pier's uprights was intense. Visibility on the site was 0. The dive was canned. 

Windy days in Exmouth eliminate a lot of activities as options, but it definitely doesn't eliminate heading to the brewery. So we made lemonade from the lemons! Scooped up Mick, Wiebke and Weronika, texted Matt's girlfriend, Kayla, so she could join in, and headed to Froth for lunch.

Mick, Nat, Matt, me, Kayla, Weronika, & Wiebke @ Froth Brewing

Cold beers + burgers with amazing company - what more can a girl ask for?! We hung out for a while, but another Exmouth activity that isn't wind dependent is watching the sunset from the Lighthouse. As a half-decent hostess, I recommended it and the Ws immediately bit. Matt & Kayla bailed (they live here, after all) and Mick and Nat opted for a rest back in their room instead. So we three roommates headed up and snagged a great spot on the hill. 

We met Mick and Nat at Whalebone Brewing (why not visit both of town's breweries in the same day? We were on vacation, baby!) for a quick pizza dinner and some live music before heading home to an early bedtime. The girls fell asleep quickly, but my brain wouldn't turn off. I headed out to hang with Sandra and David, only to find out that one of the dogs was feeling really ill. I stayed up with them watching over Mako for a few hours when Sandra suddenly realized it was after midnight. She gave me my first birthday hug and I snuck my way back to bed.

August 30

I woke up to discover that my sneaky former housemates took advantage of my absence the night before and decorated my bedroom with dinosaur-themed birthday balloons! The weather Sunday was perfect for being on the water, so Nat went out for an early morning on the boat with my whaleshark company - but she swam with humpback whales! We three eased into the day with puppy cuddles and tea before heading out for an early lunch at the Bundegi Beach Shack. 

Dinosaur birthday socks from the Ws!

Puppy snuggles

Me & the princess - she's gonna murder me for this caption

Fresh Exmouth prawns (goodness, I'm even starting to talk like the Aussies - SHRIMP!) for lunch were amaaaaazinnnnggggggg, but watching Princess Weronika daintily eat hers was even better. Girl may have fancy fingernails, but man can she rip the head off a boiled shrimp. 

We walked down to the water after lunch to dip our toes in the Exmouth Gulf and then headed back to town for my POOL PARTY!

Let me just say, there are real perks to having your birthday party at the pool bar where you work. For starters, no one fusses at you about your music selections, the service for fresh drinks is fast, and all your friends who can't come because they're working can participate anyway!

Sophie joined in when her shift ended

Wiebke, Weronika, Gabby & Corinne in the back, Me and Sophie in the front... Gabby and Corinne are co-workers at my whalesharking job!

Dancing Queen

Stu, one of my old man crew from the front bar, made a special appearance

We spent the whole afternoon hanging out by the pool, swimming and dancing and having a grand time, and then my pool bar right hand woman Jessika (AKA Puppy) arrived with a homemade birthday cake for me! Puppy is the one I work with most often in the pool bar. She's taking a gap year after finishing high school so that she can spend time with her family here in Exmouth - the local high school is tiny, so lots of kids end up doing a year or two of boarding school at the end so that they can take courses that just can't be offered here with the small number of teachers. She was away for the last year, so now she's just working to save money before heading down to Fremantle (my old stomping grounds!) to start her nursing program. Anyway, she baked me this gorgeous chocolate cake with strawberries, coconut, pistachio and almonds as garnish and it was so, so lovely. 

Ross, Me, & the Beautiful Cake

Ross laughing because I hadn't yet realized...

...that the only candle they could find at the Pub was a trick candle that re-lights itself after you blow it out. 

Nat & Puppy

The leftovers were my breakfast the next two days

Wiebke cuddles

Nat and Mick probably saved my life when they arrived (post-humpback outing) and realized that I had forgotten to eat dinner in all the excitement. They went on a mission to get some fries from the local fish and chips shop. So I rang in 30 with some hot, delicious fries, decadent chocolate cake, and so much laughter.

Back: Ross & Stu
Middle: Wiebke, me, Weronika, Nat & Mick
Next: Corinne & Puppy
Front: Bernie

After the pub closed, we went back to Ross' to continue the party by the fire pit in his back yard. Thank goodness there's no photographic evidence. All told, it was one hell of a Golden Birthday.

August 31

Wiebke is vegetarian and I'd been talking up a cafe in town that only serves vegetarian and vegan food, so we started our morning off at a shockingly reasonable hour (considering the late night prior) with breakfast there. Then it was off to the Cape Range National Park to snorkel in Turquoise Bay!

Cruisy morning at the beach

An obvious visual explanation of where Turquoise Bay gets its name

Neither Weronika nor Wiebke had ever tried snorkeling and we had big plans to fix that. Wiebke took to it right away, but Weronika isn't as comfortable in the water and bailed pretty fast. We only brought two sets of snorkeling gear, so I took Wiebke out and we found this little guy!

Wiebke's first snorkel!

When I ran up to the beach to grab my camera, I knew Weronika wanted to see the turtle, too, so I shouldn't have been surprised when we got back to the beach to find that Ross had her back in the water and was very patiently teaching her how to snorkel. Both girls crushed it on their first day :)

Geared up and ready to go!

Nat and Mick opted to stay at the bay a bit longer when we left to go back to town - we had made plans to go out on a charter boat for a sunset whale watching trip and didn't want to be late!

Suffice to say, it was a stunning evening to be on the water. The fact that the whales cooperated with us was just the icing on the cake! 

We got home and hung out on the porch for a few hours, enjoying our last night with the W's. We had such an amazing weekend and we were all sad to see it end. When we were all in bed, saying our good nights, Wiebke suggested the girls stay for one more day.... so they did! 

September 1

When we woke up, the wind was whipping - no go for the beach. No one likes to get sand blasted. Instead, the W's, Nat and I went to breakfast at the Bundegi Beach Shack and tried our best to keep the spinach with our eggs from blowing away before it made it to our mouths! We met with partial success, but mostly just enjoyed having breakfast in the sunshine, looking out over the water. After breakfast we video called Mom to say hello and then made our way back into town to poke around at the shops for a while. Wiebke loved the pink, long-sleeved rashie I lent her to wear while we were snorkeling (sun safety!), so we found her one; Weronika got an adorable sun hat; Nat looked for gifts for her Mother in Law; I just reveled in spending time with these girls who made such a long journey to spend time with me. While we were out and about I got a desperate text from one of my managers, asking whether I could come into work for a few hours. I knew she wouldn't ask if it wasn't dire, so I went to work for three hours while the girls and Mick grabbed some dinner. 

Everyone was headed home early the next morning, so we called it an early night. Even with the very average weather (when Aussies say something is "average" they really mean it's pretty bad), even with the scuba trip getting cancelled and the beach not being a great option, even with only a few days together, it was an amazing, amazing, amazing weekend. 10/10 would turn 30 again!

Coral Bay & the Exmouth Gulf

 If I was better about sending along these life updates, I would remember what information I've told you. But I'm not, so I don't. Today's thing I can't remember sharing or not is about Gisela, my former housemate from Perth! She and I split up when I came to Exmouth and she was headed to Newman, the mining town in the middle of nowhere, to do her regional work. Well girlfriend lasted less than 24 hours in Newman before realizing it was NOT where she wanted to live for three months, hopped in her car and drove to meet me in Exmouth! She decided this place wasn't quite what she wanted either, so she ended up staying in the area, but in the next town over - an hour and a half south of Exy in a town called Coral Bay. She got a job bar tending and has come up twice for visits. A few weeks back I finally returned the favor and made it down there for a visit. I meant to wake up around 6:30 to get an early start, do the day trip, and get back to Exmouth before sunset (kangaroos and dingos on the road make nighttime driving up here dangerous, even with a bull bar on the front of Tessie). Good plan, but my body clock decided that 5:20am was a better idea. So up I got up, fueled up, and watched the sunrise til the roads were bright enough to see. 

 

I got to Coral Bay pretty darned early, so I took advantage of the early hour and free moment to call my friend Megan back home for a catch up. I only made her a teensy bit jealous by showing her the beach I was calling from.

Gisela and I spent the whole day hanging out on the beach with her friends and it was so so good. After all the days of working, a veg day by the sea was perfect. Her friends are so warm and welcoming, and kept asking if I was spending the night. I told them I hadn't planned to but we would see - so obviously I stayed. It was locals night at the bar and there would be live music! Who was I to say no to that? My early morning, plus the long hours in the sun, plus the cozy atmosphere meant that I fell asleep on the couch in the middle of the after party, but, bless them, G's friends just snuggled me into some blankets and left me to it. I keep finding good people wherever I go. 

I had an 11:30am start at work the next day, so I was up and to the bakery pretty early. Got myself some yummy breakfast pies, an apple cream tart, and popped myself back on the road to Exmouth. As I was driving, I saw this majestic Wedge Tailed Eagle hanging out on a termite mound. 

Since I assume Pop lives on in every hawk I see back home, I assume this is just Australian Pop.

Before the recent bad turn of weather (meaning wind. That's all that "bad" weather means around here), Dave, Sandra and I all had a morning off from work and went out fishing in the Gulf. I told them it was my first time going out since I was about 8 years old with Uncle Jim (and the doormat flounder I caught that day!), but I think perhaps going and NOT catching fish is even more fun. You literally just get to float along in the sunshine, watching humpback whales and their calves playing, and every once in a while you jiggle your fishing rod to pretend you're doing something with it. Or that's what I did, anyway. Davo was busy catching tuna. 

David

Mural next to Bundegi Boat Ramp

It's Friday morning, August 28th, and I'm at the start of a few days off work so I can spend time with friends who are coming up for a visit from Perth! Nat & Mick are coming in a camper van they've hired, and Wiebke and Weronika are driving up in a rental car, and I can't WAIT TO SEE THEM!!! I'm going to cook up some dinner for us all tonight, Nat and I are supposed to dive the Navy Pier tomorrow (used to be a Top 10 shore dive site in the world - fingers crossed it happens! The wind reports don't look great though), and Sunday I've told everyone I know in town to stop by the Potshot Pool Bar because I'm going to be celebrating there! It might just end up being me and my crew of regulars from the pub (all men in their 50s and 60s, naturally), but I can't wait!! It's gonna be a good weekend, y'all! 

29 has been a good year, here's to turning 30 :)

It wasn't me

I should know by now how internet sleuthy my amazing family can be. My cousin Sarah and Aunt Mares in Arizona heard the news that one of the tour companies here in Exmouth had an accident - a 29 year old female on a snorkeling tour got caught between a mother humpback whale and her calf and was crushed by them. Lots of broken ribs, internal unjuries, etc. Word is that she's recovering well down in Perth (airlifted), but the news reports didn't mention her name. I should have known to IMMEDIATELY tell my parents that I'm alive, due to being a 29 year old female living in Exmouth and working on said tour boats, but I thought "ah, I don't want to worry them, I'll tell them in a few days." Fast forward 24 hours and I've got several ALL CAPS TEXT MESSAGES FROM MY MOTHER TELLING ME TO CALL HOME NOW. So oops. Anyway, prayers for the woman, but it was NOT me who was crushed. I am safe and happy and uncrushed. Also mostly dry - I didn't go out sharking last week or this week so far. We'll see. Anyway, when M&D requested a new blog post after my very apologetic phone call home, it seemed like giving an update was the least I could do as part of the apologetic groveling I need to do. 

My weekly routine of Tuesdays as my full day off and Sunday working both jobs was shaken up a bit this week. No sharking, as mentioned, and I ended up working 7 days at Potshot last week. We're supposed to be closed for dinner service on Tuesdays, but a snafu with scheduling a bus tour meant that we were gonna have 30 people who needed dinner showing up and we had to make it happen. So I worked dinner yesterday, got to hang out with the pensioners on the bus tour at the bar, and then hung out with my coworkers after work for a bit. The 7-days on was made MUCH easier by the fact that I was only on evening shifts for most of the week - Friday was my only split. So that meant that  when my brother shot me a casual hello text while I was reading in the porch hammock a few days ago, I was free to just pick up and call him for a catch up! It continues to blow my mind that even thousands of miles of distance between us doesn't make it impossible to commiserate and catch up. Technology has its downsides, but I sure do appreciate the upsides. It's a far cry from Dad's multiple week turnaround time of letter writing when he was in the Peace Corps!

I'm (as usual) at the Visitor's Center writing this missive, but the WiFi is overwhelmed by all the tourists. I need to get here earlier in the morning if I want my internet connection to be uninterrupted. I had all these plans to show you photos of my sunrise adventure from a week or two ago, but the photos won't upload. I'll figure it out. 

Anyway, so I decided I really needed to get up for a sunrise one of these days. I'm up for it on the days I go sharking, but I'm busy working so I can't take the time to properly appreciate it. I'm running to the bakery for food stuffs, packing the bus, collecting tourists, whatever. So on a day off a couple of weeks back I decided to give it a whirl. Now anyone who has met me in the early morning knows that I struggle with relinquishing sleep. I NEED sleep or I turn into a not-nice person. And, despite my best intentions, I frequently snooze alarms that are meant to get me up-and-at-'em for fun stuff (work stuff I just suffer through the indignity of an alarm). But I shocked myself by actually heeding the alarm and getting out of bed for an adventure! I planned to go watch the sunrise at the lighthouse near the tip of the peninsula, but as I drove, the pre-dawn beauty convinced me I needed to stop driving sooner rather than later and get to the beach so I could watch it. So I nipped down a little side dirt road and headed for the beach in my car. Which was cool until the sand got rapidly deeper and I wasn't yet in 4 wheel drive and got myself stuck. Which wasn't ideal because I really wanted to watch the sunrise and there were still dunes in my way. So I stubborned my way out of the hole and carried on. And then got properly bogged (NB: if I had actual experience doing 4WD stuff I would probably not be considered bogged. But that's semantics because I was by myself. So.). I was close enough to the water at that point that I just left my hazards flashing and walked myself the last 30 yards to the water. It was spectacular. So worth waking up for. 

Lightly stuck Tessie

Turtle hatchling tracks

Once the sun was well and truly up, I needed to un-bog. 45 minutes of back and forth over the sand compacting it, letting my tire pressure down, and very patiently convincing Tessie that we needed to make it happen, and I was out! I thought to head back to the main road to town but then saw another side track road and thought why not? My tires already needed re-filling, so may as well use them! So instead, I nipped my way back to town by driving along the beach! It was about 8am by that point and I didn't see another soul. I had considered driving over to the west side of the peninsula and the beaches there because the wind and swell were both going to be down - ideal conditions for a beach day - so I had my bathing suit with me and figured I might as well put it to good use! Parked up in the sand, headed down to the water and was halfway in when my inner nudist said "why get the suit all wet unnecessarily?" And obviously I listened. So I'm swimming about in all my naked, solo glory when I think "Mom will totally appreciate this." So I called her up (close enough to town at that point to have cell service) and showed her the beach and bragged about how brilliant I am, taking advantage of a deserted beach to go for a swim, and how I haven't seen another soul when I SEE A CAR DRIVING UP THE BEACH AT ME. So I had to sprint to the car, Mom cackling at me, to grab my towel and get covered up. The guy waved as he went by and definitely was on to me, but thank goodness he just kept going. Oy.

Beach "road"

Pelicans

Morning sprint distance

Treated myself to breakfast at a cafe in town, re-filled my tires, went for a haircut, and then off to the west side for beaching. Davo (my housemate) recommended staying at one of the beaches further north on the peninsula as there would probably be fewer tourists. So I rocked up to the second one I came to (first one is a popular surf beach, so I knew it'd be packed) and got myself parked. Only after parking did I notice the signs saying it's a nude beach. So anyway, that's how I ended up naked on two separate beaches on the same day in Exmouth! As Davo is fond of saying, all the normal people are in Perth, Exmouth is where all the weirdos live. So I guess count me among them!

This week has been crappy weather (VERY windy, some rain) which has been perfect for feeling content staying home and reading every day before going in to work. This is what I look like 70% of the time when I'm not at work:

This is what I look like the other 30% of the time:

I keep pinching myself, but apparently this is where I actually live

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!!!

Free Wifi

I wasn't sure how to get started this morning but knew I had to: I talked to Mom Mom last week while she was staying at my parents' house for a few days and she encouraged me to blog again... so I knew I needed to blog again. I'm still at Sandra and David's house, my co-workers, but they don't have wifi! They just have big data plans on their cell phones and use that connection to power their various internet wanderings. I, too, have a large data plan (data is SO MUCH CHEAPER in Australia than in the US), but I'm also cheap and would prefer to use free data over not free data. So I find myself sitting back at the Ningaloo Visitor's Center, tapping away this post.

It's another beautiful day in paradise (but actually - 75 degrees, not a cloud in sight, cool breeze) and my bike ride to the Visitor's Center with a mug of tea in hand went surprisingly well. It's only been a bit over a week of using my bike every day to get around town, but my single-hand riding skills are definitely not apparent yet. I spilled tea the whole way here. But I made it! And MOST of the tea is still inside its vessel! So I'm chalking it up as a win.

Things in town are getting busy, so work is getting busy. I'm on duty at the Potshot for 6 days, 5 of which are split shifts - so I work both lunch and dinner shift with a 2-3 hour break in between, depending on how busy things are. I got a text from the Dive shop earlier in the week wanting to know if I can go out on the whaleshark boat EVERY DAY next week, so sounds like they're busying up, too. I told that boss that I'm happy to help out when the bar work schedule allows for it, so as of now I'm scheduled to have off from both jobs tomorrow (July 4th) and then work both jobs on Sunday. I did that last Sunday and it went shockingly well. Start at the dive shop is 6:45am, I finished up around 3:40pm, raced home on my bike (no tea in hand that day) for a shower and a change of clothes, and was at the bar for a 4pm start. It was hectic, and a long day - I stayed at the bar til close that night - but pretty amazing to spend the day helping people to swim with the largest fish in the sea and then head straight into work flirting with old men at the bar. Ideal.

I think I mentioned that Sandra and David have dogs, but I'm not sure I mentioned what snuggly little cuddle bugs they are or showed you photos:

Mako

Tia

Maddy

All of my clothes are slowly getting dog hair infested because all three love to climb up in your lap at the end of the day. Especially because the evenings get a bit chilly (desert climate even though we're smack up next to the sea), it's so nice to have a little space heater half flopped on your lap while you're reading a book. So I'm happily taking the dog hair in exchange for warm snuggles. On my days off (or mornings off when I'm not on split shifts) I've taken up residence in a hammock on the porch at the house. David mentioned the other day that it's creepy to suddenly discover that I'm in the hammock, and have been in the hammock, as he's going about his day around the house, but he hasn't noticed because I haven't moved in several hours and only my feet, sticking out the end, are visible. Hiding in plain sight. There's a cute little pigeon that visits the bird feeder in the yard who walks across the roof before landing to make sure the dogs aren't nearby. So he flops on the porch roof (corrugated iron) and struts himself over to the edge (making quite a clamor) and then pokes his head down to see who's nearby. The hammock is right under his landing spot, so it's lots of fun cooing at him when he pops his little face out.

I'm hungry and have to get to work in an hour so I'll leave you with some photos I took at the Pool Bar last night during my dinner shift: