Lazy Daze

So I have been in Exmouth for just over two weeks now, and I love it. We work every other day, which leave plenty of time to relax. We go snorkling every few days, or just hang out on the beach. Friday nights are the big party nights here, they call the bar the Bimbo Bar, it is pretty funny. They have a three dollar disco ball and the local mechanic is the dj. There are some pretty cool people up here volunteering, so it is great to go out and have fun with them. We drink at Club 405, named so after our very prestigious room number at the fabulous Potshot (potty). We drag a bunch of chairs out infront of our room, where we can listen to music provided by Linda or Averil, and we have a good view of the bar so we can judge whats going on there. We drink vodka and goon, and even after a hard night, we remember to keep our chins up. If the goon flows freely, some of the sexy Turtle Girls may provide entertainment, and if you have ever seen Tam at the bar, you'd know she is always pure entertainment.

Other than drinking, we do a fair bit of..I don't know, more drinking.Here is Katie representing 406, as well as her home counrty, the USA. Us North Americans did have some serious competition with the Ozzies though, Naiomi for example has no problems drinking goon straight out of the box if she is falling behind.





Sometimes we venture out into the world that lays beyond the Potty. We go all over the place, Exmouth is surrounded by beauty. The only real problem with leaving the safety of the Potty is that if you don't watch Rachel every single second, she tends to wander off on her own and cause trouble. Here are some pics of her getting into scuffles with the local wildlife. Then I have to get in there and bail her out, but I try to at least get a picture first. You should have seen the ones that I couldn't post on here.

If it is not Friday, and therefore there is no Bimbo Bar, we have to go to the regular bar, which is really no comparison at all. I mean, no Love Generation, no disco ball. But as a bonus there are usually some old fisher men that want to discuss how stupid it is that we are saving the turtles, and how good they taste in soup. This pic was taken before any of our original crew left us, including Averil, and Roni, who although not a turtle volunteer was always a vip member of 405.

Here is a pic of Roni and Linda playing two of some of the many instruments we were lucky enough to hear while staying at the potty. Linda was talented at everything from the glokenshpiel to the banjo, but to hear her on the violin was magic. Roni was pretty decent at the guitar, the real reason that we let him be a vip member.

So, apparently, Exmouth has no wet season, it is dry all year. But we experienced three cyclone warnings, and although nothing too exciting happened (well, there was that one morning we didn't have to go monitoring) but we did get some pretty crazy rain. It usually only lasted minutes, but my favorite was one time I was swimming in the pool and it rainned and it was warm and nice..I never understood why my friend Stacey told me it was nice to hang out in the rain when it is warm out (the two don't really go together in Calgary). The other time was when this pic was taken, on night infront of 405. Some of the girls ran home from dinner at the Sea Urchin, and got a touch wet. And when it started rainning, we would get some new friends, so little frogs would appear in our garden. I do appreciate the guy that caught me one to look at, but I wasn't too impressed when he said he would eat it live..



One Sunday, our social was held at the local pool, and it was closed except for all the vollies. We had a bouncy castel type obstical course that you had to run over, and here is Mistral doing a fantastic job of stradling one of the obsticals.

One night there was a going away party for a few CALM (Conservation and Land Management, who with in conjunction with the turtle program) staff who are leaving. So we had a big barbq, went to the bar and then stayed up all night drinking. Since our sleeping schedule is so messed up some nights I can stay awake until 6am and others I have to be awake by 4:45am. Sometimes we head back to Craig's house for a barbq and to enjoy his amazing deck. Here is me and Mistral enjoying that deck, I also just wanted to throw in a more dignified picture of Mistral, who is actually gorgeous, and not always stradling large blow up plastic things.

Another night the other week there was a free party at the beach, with a group called the Lounge Lizards playing and it was so fun to dance on the beach. At night you can go to the back door of the bakery and order pies so one night me and another volunteer Rachel stumbled over there. She somehow managed to slice her toe open on the flat ground. If you knew how often she ended up on the ground, you wouldn't be too surprised.

After Rachel broke her toe open, we got pulled over by the police, but I think they were just bored and wanted someone to talk to. The only other action I think they've seen since we got here is a domestic dispute we helped break up in the parking lot one night. The cops asked us where we were going, and we didn't want to say, because we thought it might be a black market backdoor bakery operations, but when we stood there for 5 minutes going 'Ummmm..' trying to think up a good story, they said 'Well, we'll let you keep stumbling to the bakery then.' We did, and hung out there waiting for pies, and trying not to let Racel look at her sick toe.

One day we headed up to the lighthouse to watch the sunset, which was really pretty over the ocean. Other than that, we usually saw the sunset from the front of 405, which although over a parking lot, I still found to be nice. You can sit back and hear the birds that sound like they are being strangled, and then the stars start to come out, which are so bright out here.

Yesterday I went fishing, which was a first ever for me. It seems like everyone fishes here. The girls next door used to go all the time. Me and Rachel met a cowboy and he took us out to Learmouth Jetty. I really only went to get away and do something different, not thinking that I would really like it. But it was awesome! He actually did most of the work, setting up our poles and baiting them for us. But then we actually started catching fish. At first we caught little ones that we had to throw back, and the first one freaked me out a bit. I was screaming a bit and saying sorry and I didn't want to look at it cause I felt bad. But I got over that. Then we just hung out on the jetty with Alex and his dog Jez, who reminded me so much of Kuma, and made me miss her.

We caught about 5 Gar (no idea how to spell that) fish, and took them back. Rachel ended up going out to dinner with some of the volunteers that were leaving, and Alex ate something else, so he cooked up this massive plate of fish for me. I was really glad that he cut them all up and I didn't have to see any of that. I bought some french fries to eat with them, and it was the best dinner I've eaten in ages. It was fresh, free, and cooked for me, so really I don't know how it could have been better. And it was great to do something that I had a preconcieved notion that I would hate, and end up having a great day.

Another great day was Australia Day, on January 26th. We got up bright and early and headed down to the local pool for free breakfast. They even had hashbrowns, which no one really eats here, so I was in heaven. Then we headed home to get down to some serious business, mainly listening to Triple J's (the nationwide radio station) Top 100 and a bit of drinking. Me and Jess decided the last person to wake up had to skull (chug) their first drink, but then she went for a nap, and that person ended up being her. After that we all got on the bus to head down to the local yatch club, which was really just an open space out on the grass looking out onto the ocean, it was great. Then we heard our favorite local band, the Lounge Lizards play, and we danced for ages. I can see why Naiomi says that it is her favorite holiday all year, I just hope one day I can share mine, Halloween, cause they don't really celebrate it in Oz.








And here is another reason that being up here is remarkable - a gorgeous turtle, I believe her name is Murial. I took it apon myself to name every turtle I saw, so pretty much all my female friends now have turtles named after them. Aww, just look at her eyes!