I am sitting on the ship, at anchor off Cape Peron, Shark Bay, WA right now. I haven’t written here in an age so as usual I have loads to write and it will be in a nice higgildy-piggildy fashion! We are in Shark Bay for 5 weeks and then I will be flying back to Fremantle. Its really nice here, our base is Monkey Mia, which is a little village you might call it, in the middle of nowhere. There is literally a shop, pub, restaurant, hostel, some chalets and an information centre. You can walk the length of it in about 3 minutes. Theres a lovely beach there and its famous for dolphins which come into the beach to feed at certain times of the day. You can have a camel ride and all sorts! Its a big tourist place but you just go to relax. The pub, chalets and hostel open out onto the beach, mostly everything does actually, and its beautiful. The coastline around it is amazing, it is red dirt going into white sand, cliffs with beaches at the bottom of them. It is a wildlife sanctuary, and really serene.
We do a voyage a week and have most of two days between them which is lovely, just a few of us on the ship, anchored here and going ashore for a few drinks or food. The weather is really nice too, its warm and sunny but not too hot, and we came north at the right time as Perth is cold and rainy at the moment by all accounts!
For my birthday last week it was nice. I got presents in the post which were all great, thanks! So I opened them, then we went ashore and had a few drinks in the Monkey Bar! Sitting out in the sun, looking onto the beach, its just lovely there. We obviously had to have champagne for the occasion! Unfortunately I also had a hard day on the beach! I broke my toe on one of the steps coming off the beach, its been quite sore, not as sore as the time I broke the same poor toe a couple of years ago in Grace O’Connells place in Blackrock, and had to go to Ghana with a massively swollen foot! I think I put a pic on Facebook of the offending toes this time, they got a good bruising!
There is a lovely catamaran here called the ‘Shotover’ which does sails around the bay here, they bring the kids out here for the voyages. The kids arrive at about 6pm on the first day, after an 11 hour bus ride from Perth. After the week sailing, they leave at 6am on the last day which is cool, we get up at 4.30am and get everything ready, the Shotover comes to pick them up and once theyre ready and gone, were here all alone again by 0700! Its great being up that early in the morning, already having done a few hours work and ready to relax for the day! Or work?
Last weekend I put up my hammock on the deck, it was great, so nice to just sit there in the sun, swaying with the ships movement. We put it up the first day though in the morning and it was fairly windy and a bit cold, so I was there in my long trousers, hoodie, beanie (wooly hat), trying to get into the hammock without being blown away! Obviously the antics had to follow, tying people up while they were asleep in it etc, oh the fun we have on here!
