A Loss for Words

I’m happy to report that today will be my last day of work at Barrow Island, although I’m suspicious whether this will be my last day of work as a marine fauna observer. Either way tomorrow I get the hell out of here on the first Cobham flight back to Perth, connecting to Brisbane later in the evening. Don’t get me wrong, Barrow Island is a beautiful and unique place full of interesting and noteworthy fauna…but I’ve been living and working on freaking dredgers, not exactly the most mentally stimulating of environments; especially when you run out of reading material and the only method for maintaining the interest of anyone during a conversation requires inserting the F-bomb after every other syllable. (Luckily there are enough girlie magazines around to last a lifetime). As a side note it has been amusing listening to the Dutch adopt the Aussie’s prolific use of the word fuck; “ Dusheiv dagen ban un FUCK’N flarven von on FUCK vitchebein sausage FUCKING FUCK duetch.” In the absence of books by real writers, I have discovered that reading past posts are a good way to reflect on my time down here; I’m especially enjoying reliving June of last year…”he sounds a bit pretentious if you ask me” (that was a fictitious quote from a made up reader by the way).

And so it is….that is that….moving on. My loss of words about this place sums up my feelings about living. Although I’ve only worked a total of 3 months out here, split between 3 swings, it feels like it’s been an eternity. So as the story goes, theTaurus II will keep breaking up that coral, the Gateway will keep sucking it up, and the Finnmarken will remain more boring than a speech from Bob Dole. Me, I’m out.

Good luck termite mounds and spinifex…keep on keeping on.