Pinked

I had my last morning at work with the fuel company recently, sad to go in some ways because they've been very good to me and it's been a pretty relaxed place to work (despite some high-pressure times). At the same time I'm looking forward to getting stuck into the new job - part time with it for the last month has been hard.

The boss started making a little speech about how they had thought long and hard about an appropriate going away present for me. By this stage I was thinking "holy cow, what on earth could they have come up with???" I know if I were in their position I wouldn't have a clue about what to buy me! Then I was handed a box (an old oil filter box appropriately) and inside was an exquisite pink cowgirl hat, a pink golf cap and a bottle of Moet pink champagne in it's own monogrammed pink bottle cooler! So we had the photo op and it was emailed down to all the Fremantle staff (most of whom have never met me, I wonder what they think of their weirdo Darwin office?).

I was very touched, they HAD thought long and hard. Apparently they had to search in both Perth and Darwin to come up with just the right ensemble.

Now, I'm not really a pink sort of a gal but as a joke ages ago I bought a hot pink cowgirl hat and it became my "on the wharf" hat, it was very popular with the fishermen though I never did manage to convince everyone to start wearing one. Some of you might remember this photo from my previous BigBlog times. These days the poor old hat is faded and a bit grubby, but still in use. I kept meaning to replace it but never managed to find just the right hat. Now I have it.

Later, when I was at my new job, they sent me this photo of Oscar getting in on the act (because of course Oscar is still on their payroll....).

Easter almost gone...

The photos throughout this post are from a drive the Bloke and I did the other week before he went to sea. We wanted to see the last of the Wet Season water before everything starts to dry up. Fogg dam is a remnant of a rice project from the fifties, a failure on that front but now a great haven for water birds - and crocodiles, while we were there we saw a ranger with a croc on his trailer, could get any photos unfortunately because it was on the dam wall and we couldn't get out of the car (plus I was trying to hide the dog......).

Hope everyone had a lovely Easter. For the first time in ages I didn't work, well I didn't go To Work, but I did work! This is the time of the year for getting all those post-Wet Season jobs done, the weather just makes you want to get stuck into it all. I spent one day in the garden - tidied up my nature strip and collected piles of palm fronds, raked leaves and mulched and fertilised. I don't have a lawn out the front, too many big trees, but it does get weedy in the Wet and now is the best time to attack them. Then I spent one day on the roof, another section with almost one coat on. After that I had to take a day off, I'm usually exhausted and stiff and sore after bending and squatting on a sloping surface. So just reading, sufing the net, a visit to Bunnings (more roof paint) and just a little dabble in the garden to plant out a few new plants (an inevitable side effect of a trip to Bunnings).

I didn't have any Easter eggs but I did manage to stuff myself full of almost everything else when I went to dinner at my Italian neighbours place last night. Mamma mia I was full! I had to try and eat everything but I am just not used to eating a four course meal...... I was the only one there with food left on my plate, embarrassing (but I'm sure her dog loved me). Potato soup followed by a main course of meatballs, vegies, salad, caramilised baby onions, slow cooked pork in a sort of apple stew. Then hunks of fresh rockmelon while we "rested" until able to squeeze in the special Easter cake. All interspersed with Chianti, white wine and mineral water. Thankfully I only had to roll across the road and collapse into bed.

Today it was back onto the roof to work some of it off. Phew, don't feel like going back to work tommorrow.

Garden visitor

I know I've been slack on the blogging front lately, but sometimes life just gets in the way of some quality computer time!

I'll start off with a recent visitor to my garden, a pheasant coucal. You usually hear them more often that you see them, a haunting coo coo coooool sound like a cross between an owl and a cuckoo on valium. He was not very cooperative in showing me his beautiful long tail unfortunately.

I started the new job last week, while still doing my old job, so that's been a bit frantic. I do mornings on the wharf with the fuel mob and then afternoons I put on my fisheries hat and go to the new job. The new office is only 100 yards away, upstairs overlooking the wharf but the work is very different. Suddenly I have to get my head back around organising meetings and communicating with all sorts of people instead of just swearing at fishermen and yachties! Last week was mainly spent getting the office stuff up and running and linking it all in with OceanWatch, the NSW organisation that is employing me. This week I will get down to some nitty gritty - a meeting with some key people in the fishing industry to nut out exactly what my work programme should be.

On top of all that I am STILL trying to paint my roof, a slow process for it's a huge job and the preparation is endless. Today I spent 5 hours doing the last of the water blasting ready for priming. I must be mad. But I did committ myself to this when I had a nice little part time job and lots of time on my hands. I'll just do a bit at a time when I can. I'm now stiff and sore from all that bending and squatting. Exercising? I must have done about a 100 squats wire brushing and daubing primer on innumerable spots where it's back to bare metal. Most of the roof you can bend over and work up the slope, but when you get close to the edge of the roof it's a squat job. What a fun weekend!

The bloke has gone to sea, taking young Kurly the Rat with him. It will be interesting to see how the crew deal with that! But we've always found an animal on board provides a lot of entertainment for everyone. The Cat always won over those deckhands who claimed to hate all cats and initially thought she was only good for crab bait.

Of course no update is complete without a mention of Oscar the Wonder Dog. Sadly, I can't take him to work with me at the new job, it's just not that sort of place. But luckily for his social life the fuel people insist that he still goes to work every day there! What a spoilt dog. So Oscar gets left with them while I swan off to my new office and then I pick him up when it's time to go home. Ridciulous really, I think they were more unhappy about the thought of losing Oscar than at me leaving them in the lurch. My replacement starts there after Easter and luckily he's a dog lover, in fact he probably wouldn't have got the job if he wasn't.

Yet another pet.....

Meet the latest member of the menagerie, Kurly the baby rat..... Yes, I know, people hate rats but they do make great little pets if they're not your horrible wild gray rat kind. The Bloke was talking to a mate who has a pet python and he was saying how sad he felt for the poor little mice he had to feed the cranky old snake. Well, bloke decided maybe he could get a cute little mouse as a boat pet but I half-jokingly told him rats were much more interesting - intelligent, clean, funny, friendly etc. About 20 years ago I had a pet rat called Hieronymous Bartholomew (Ronnie Rat) and he was quite a character. Well, we talked ourselves into it I'm afraid, both suckers when it comes to animals.

So here is Kurly, a female Norwegian Hooded rat, only the size of a mouse at present but already so unafraid and friendly, loves a snuggle and a pat. Some strict segregation going on between Kurly and The Cat I'm afraid, that will be an ongoing battle. But Oscar loves her, just like a little black and white mirror image of him.

I don't know how many lives a rat has but she used up her one on the first night - I left her cage covered and hanging up out on the verandah, let The Cat outside at her usual 5 am the next morning. Then an hour later when I got up I uncover the rat cage and there was Kurly sitting on the cage, OUTSIDE. She must have been small enough to squeeze through the bars but then became afraid to move anywhere else! She seemed very happy to get back in the cage.

I have to do some serious thinking tonight - I've been offered a job that is going to be very hard to refuse, now I just have to negotiate with my present employment so I can leave gracefully. The new job is more aligned to my past fisheries work, with an organisation that is looking at expanding from its base in NSW. It's the sort of position that just NEVER comes up in Darwin, normally if I wanted to continue in that line of work I'd have to be prepared to work outside of Australia again. The only drawback is they only have guaranteed funding until the end of the year, though they are optimisitic it will be an ongoing position. I'm inclined to go for the challenge and hang the risk. I feel like I'm coasting with the job I'm doing at the moment and it is only part time - that was a big drawcard when we had the boat and I needed the flexibility to help with that, but now I could do with something a bit meatier.

They need me to start as soon as possible but have been kind enough to suggest maybe I could be part time in both jobs until my old work can find someone else. I feel pretty lucky to be faced with this dilemma when so many others are losing jobs.

Wharf work

Well here's something completely different to my last post.............. All week at work heavy machinery has been setting up to repair a wall of the wharf that has sat unsused and condemned for years now. I only thought to take my camera with me today doh! But no doubt they will be at it for some time. It took them all week just to set up the big pile driver (and, by the way, did you know that a "pile driver" also refers to a professional wrestling move AND and acrobatic sexual position. And no, I don't know any more than that, Google it yourself).

The noise of cranes and machinery from the past few days is nothing compared to what we are going to get once the pile driver starts. This monster is only several metres from our little office, which is only a demountable sitting on concrete blocks, so I guess we are going to start jumping up and down with the booming of the pile as it rams into the ground.

Guess who will be finding all sorts of excuses to run errands away from the wharf?

The only one who is really enjoying the extra wharf activity is Oscar the Wonder Dog as he now has about 10 new friends to do the rounds for pats, not to mention some serious smoko snack opportunities.



Lucky the guys don't seem to mind an inquisitive canine wandering around amongst trucks, cranes and workboots. He will NOT wear a hardhat though.

The wonderful world of Yap

I thought I'd write a post that had nothing to do with fires of floods, though they are never far from my mind. A distraction, perhaps. Anway, it's a good excuse to start scanning old photos.... The wonderful world of Yap? I know, it sounds like a good title for a kids story, but Yap is an incredible little bunch of islands about 500 miles north of Papua New Guinea, slap bang in the middle of Micronesia, which is basically just ocean with the odd island dotted about.

Some years ago I scored a wonderful job, based in New Caledonia, which took me all around the Pacific, to some of the most out of the way little corners of that vast ocean. My main work was researching the involvement of women in fisheries, from the processing and sale of seafood to the collection and use of all sorts of weird and wonderful creatures and seaweeds from the reefs. One of the most traditional places I worked in was The Federated States of Micronesia, comprising Pohnpei, Chuuk, Kosrae and Yap. Of those Yap was the most untouched, and the most difficult place to work. All of those states involved two visits, from 2 to 3 weeks at a time, the first for research and the second to hold workshops on seafood handling & processing, small business, fisheries management etc.

And why was Yap so difficult? Well, I remember on my initial visit everyone I spoke to said "women? they aren't involved in fisheries!" despite the fact that women had the greatest impact on inshore reefs and were the main marketers of seafood.

In Yap it is still common to see women in traditional dress - a short type of homespun sarong around the waist and nothing else. It is also common for women to never eat with the men and to crawl in the presence of husbands, fathers, brothers. It took me nearly 2 weeks before I even got to speak to a woman!

The people are VERY reserved towards strangers, it took a long time and a lot of patience to get anywhere with my work, but in the end I spoke with many women (at the first meeting several women approached me on their knees..... presumably not because they thought I was a bloke but because that is a mark of their respect) and we agreed to go ahead with a training workshop. That workshop is a whole other post really. It was a riot - several men from the fisheries department had asked to attend, probably to keep an eye on me and the women. They did, but they had to shut up and sit down the back and by god, those women turned out to be a bawdy bunch of gals. Don't get them started on clam jokes! Actually clams are a great ice-breaker in the Pacific as everywhere you go there is the same perception of giant clams resembling female genitalia, much like us and oyster/libido jokes I guess.

Unfortunately I have very few photos of the workshop as all my work photos had to stay with the organisation in New Caledonia when I left, and I never got around to getting copies. Later I'll post some others I have from other countries, they are all similar, the end of a workshop usually consisted of me wearing a silly grin, umpteen dozen shell necklaces, with several flower circles on my head and clutching a bunch of beautifully woven pandanus fans. And I'm always in a long skirt or dress, which is pretty funny in itself for those who know me.

So these photos are from my time off when I was playing tourist. The stone money was quarried in Palau (the 2nd most traditional and reserved place I worked in), about 500 miles to the west of Yap, and transported back at great risk on their traditional sailing canoes or towed on rafts behind them. The greater the risk the more the value of the money. Some of them belong to individuals, others are like the village "bank." Although they aren't used now as money as such, they are still valued.

The traditional houses were pretty special too, especially this men's house with it's wonderful paintings inside - showing just how important the sea was and is to them.

I was very lucky to visit Yap and even luckier to have worked there - it gave me an experience with the people that I just wouldn't have had as just a visitor. It wasn't easy though!

Remembering Banjo

I found out recently that my old dog Banjo died and it bought back so many memories I thought I'd write some down. Sorry about the length, but it's only a snippet of the memories that dog gave me! Banjo must have been about 15 or 16 years old, she had a good life, except for her very early days. She hadn't lived with me for about 12 years, but she was a big part of my life for several years in Tasmania.

It was 1994 and I'd torn myself away from fishing in the north west of Australia and summonsed the courage to go back to school as a "mature age student" (shudder). I moved from Darwin to Beauty Point, in the north of Tasmania, to start a 3 year Bachelor of Science degree. I bought a funny old steel boat and was living in the marina there on the Tamar River. The then love of my life had just returned to Scotland and my brother and nephew were visiting. We decided a dog was what I needed to see me through the seemingly endless expanse of study and life in freezing Tasmania. I didn't want a pup as I could only offer 3 years of stability, after that who knows what I would be doing. So off we went to the local animal rescue, a private farm run by a determined woman for the many cruelty cases that seemed to end up on her doorstep.

I remember standing at the dog pen with all these mongrels clamouring at the wire, "pick me, pick me!" They were all too big and boisterous to adapt to life on a boat. Then at the back I spied this little mutt just standing quietly watching, that was the one. Her name was Barcardi and she'd been a badly beaten skeleton when found. Being a bull terrier cross her previous "carers" had tried to turn her into a hunting dog, but she just didn't have it in her. I renamed her Banjo because after some time at the farm she had turned from a skeleton into a round, glossy, happy little thing. She was about 18 months old we guessed.

Banjo adapted really well to life on the boat. She'd happily come along on the river jaunts I did in the old tub. If she was left on the boat on her own she'd spend the entire day at the bow peering through the anchor chain hole. To get off the boat from the bow onto the pontoon was quite a jump. She got used to me tossing her down, though it did get hairy in the middle of winter when there was a layer of ice on the steel pontoon and she'd go skidding across to the other side.... never quite into the water though.

Because of the bull terrier mix she had a very pink nose which could get badly sunburnt so I kept it protected with blue zinc. When people would ask me why she had a blue nose I'd reply "well she just refuses to wear any other colour" - more often than not they'd just look at me strangely and ask no more questions.

Banjo became a fixture at the maritime college where I was studying. Every day we'd walk up the hill to the school and every day for 3 years when I went into class Banjo would run around the buildings until she spied which classroom I was in, then she'd settle outside the window as close to my seat as possible. Rain, hail, or shine. If anyone left a door into the building open she would sneak in, run around and find which room I was in, sneak in the door, crawl under the chairs until she was under mine, then settle down happily for a snooze in the warmth. Almost invariably though she would get sprung by the lecturer as eventually she would let out this huge, long sigh/groan/grunt of contentment and the entire class would erupt in laughter. "Get that dog out of here!" Boring lecturers....

If she wasn't able to sneak into class she would be waiting patiently at the front door for when we all came out on break. Then she would erupt into a joyous bouncing, leaping straight up into the air again and again. I'd play her like a yoyo. I think she may have had fox terrier in the mix somewhere as she would also do those straight up leaps if she was in long grass. Very funny to see her in a field of long grass, popping straight up like she was on a pogo stick.

The martime college once had a visit from an eminent Russian fisheries management scientist. This guy was like a guru in his field, heaps of publications, very well respected worldwide. At the time he was probably in his eighties, a venerable old chap. The college gave him an office with a window on to the front foyer where Banjo would wait patiently all day while I was in class. Days went by, the Russian scientist was like a god walking amongst us. As a lowly first or second year student I certainly never had any interaction with him. And then one day he walked by when Banjo was doing her yoyo trick as I came outside and he said "I hav been vatching your dog for days now and hav done a statistical analysis!" I gulped. "Yes, I hav observed zat 98.99% of peoples entering or leafing zis building stop and pat ze dog, amazing no?" That was my brush with scientific superstardom! I waited in vain for a scientific paper to appear regarding Banjo.....

Not long after I started living in the marina I scored the job of caretaker there, looking after the 80 or so boats and dealing with the visiting yachts, especially busy during the racing season. One day I climbed down from my boat, after tossing Banjo down, and saw a dinghy rowing towards me with a couple of old Tassie codgers on board. They were classics! They had an Abbott and Costello type routine and grilled me relentlessly. John and Glen had come to check out this "sheila living on her boat and taking over the marina." Well from that I formed a lifelong friendship, with John particularly, in fact it is John who rang and told me Banjo had "gone to doggy heaven."

Banjo adored John. He would periodically bring his boat, Awanui, from Launceston to the Beauty Point Marina and stay there for a while. Banjo would go visit and John would feed her all the chop bones he'd saved from the last few meals (I think John lived on chops). But Banjo wouldn't eat them straight away, no, she'd come back to my boat with her mouth stuffed full of chop bones and ask to be hauled aboard before they would be eaten.

Close to the time that my studies were nearly over I had to think about what I was going to do next. I knew that I would be working overseas or somewhere remote or at sea and Banjo could not be a part of that. My friends in the town and marina knew it too and I had so many offers of a home for the girl, she had won over an entire community. I settled on a lovely couple from Ulverstone who kept a yacht opposite my boat and had played with Banjo most weekends. They had a young daughter, an aging dog and a great love for Banjo. I was offered a job as a fisheries observer on Russian fishing boats in New Zealand and then a dream job working with the fisheries department in Samoa, which I jumped at. Sold the boat, left dear Banjo with my yachtie friends, and hightailed it for Samoa. I remember for weeks after leaving Banjo I would pick up my keys and look around expectantly for her to start yo-yoing in anticipation of an adventure.

Every year I recieved news from Banjo from all quarters, she was happy, getting very fat, doing a great job looking after Grandma, outliving the old dog, getting fatter, chasing rabbits in the paddocks, bouncing up and down like a yoyo. I never saw her again but I am so glad she had such a great life and gave so much happiness to me and her other adoptive family. I can't believe they had her for 12 years. I hope all those good years shoved out all the awful memories of her first 18 months. Dogs, honestly, they give us so much more than we give them.