Another Year for Reef

My boy turns 28 tomorrow (Halloween), they grow up so fast. He’s had a good life so far; from growing up as a puppy on the whale watching boats, going to the beach and swimming after me as I paddled away into the surf, several backpacking trips to Double Cone and the Lost Coast, roads trips to Oregon, and now living with the parents probably being fed lots of people food and terrorizing Conner. He’s been a great dog through college, and I’m looking forward to getting him back next August for a new chapter of his life. I’ll have to get him on a running routine to work off all the fat I’m sure he’ll put on over the next few months with the grandparents. Hopefully he hasn’t forgotten all of his tricks.

Mackay hasn’t changed much since I was here last. Still full of fat Aussies (otherwise known as Bogans), strip bars, pokie machines, and some varied and surprisingly good culinary options. We are only doing one blast a day, so it’s nice to have some down time to organize my life after 5 weeks of chaos that was HARC. I have several things to sort out before I fly over to Perth for training next week. I managed to catch the last 3 innings of game 2 of the World Series yesterday, which turned out to be an exciting game for the Giants. I’ve decided that next year, if I’m around, I’m going to try and go to as many Giants games as possible. I think I’ll get more into baseball if I pick a team and follow it through. I’m choosing the Giants because it’s a nice stadium, the home games are close, and it’s always nice to support a winning team (although they haven’t won yet, but they will unless the Rangers get their pitching staff in order).

Still thinking about applying to Moss Landing Marine Labs, despite the fact that it takes ages to finish. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to finish up the paper work over the next month during my time of isolation. I’ve been so busy surfing and staring at whales lately that I haven’t had much brain power for anything else. I may be doing some seabird work in Tasmania in February, which will help me figure out if I want to work with seabirds for my master’s.

The blast was cancelled today, possibly due to wind (but they never tell us). Since there’s no surf in Mackay (damn Great Barrier Reef and it’s scattered islands), I’m off to the pool to work off all of the free calories I’ve been consuming.