Australia Gets Hit Again

Today was an exciting day for several reasons. I’ve been looking for an older Tacoma with low mileage for a while now, and I was finally able to purchase one. Now I just have to wait until April when I return to California to drive it. It’s a Burgundy 97 Tacoma with only 78,000 miles…stoked. I had to compromise with the color, but it has all the other features that I’ve been looking for and I finally had the money to put down an offer.

Secondly, as you may or may not know it is hatchling season here on Barrow Island. The sea turtle eggs have been incubating for several weeks, and the new hatchlings are now bursting from their sand tombs like the zombies from Thriller, in a frantic effort to get off the beach and out to sea. Most of the hatchlings emerge at night, and leave the immediate perimeter of the island by sunrise. Expect for the one we found in a space called the “spud carrier” on the ship this morning. The spud carrier is essentially a hole in the vessel where the stabilizer spud resides. Somehow the daredevil hatchling found it’s way into the space and was at risk of being crushed by the spud. So the captain and I climbed into the hole and wrangled the little guy until it was cornered (unfortunately it swam to the captain, I really wanted to do the rescue). They are amazing little suckers and it was nice more first experience with one was a rescue. I later identified it as a flatback hatchling.

This was all followed by 8 hours of INTENSE boredom. Only 13 more days to go…and slowly counting.

It is especially exciting for the people in Northeast Queensland tonight. At this moment it’s 9PM (11PM in Queensland) and a category 5 cyclone is about to make landfall near Cairns. It’s the second cyclone to hit the coast in last 2 weeks and the region has already been devastated by epic rainfall and flooding. They are comparing this extreme low pressure system to Katrina, and will most likely cause similar wide spread destruction. Two of my fellow MFOers who live in Townsville (an area expected to be heavily impacted) are bunkering down in the dark, waiting for cyclone Yasi to pass. This is Australia’s largest super cyclone on record, winds upwards of 290 km/hour near the eye, storm surges over 7 meters, and of course more rain. In a way I wish I could be there with them to experience it.

You can see how humid it has been here by the photo of the hatchling; cameras, binoculars, and glasses instantly fog up once you leave the air-conditioned bridge.