On Guard

 The Coast Guard service is a volunteer one like a lot of other services around here, so we were happy to put in the gold coins and we needed  numerous coins for numerous buckets. This day out was a well organised effort considering they had not done this sort of thing before.  I talked to the Fish police about the red/brown jellies and they were trying to suggest they were Lion's Mane jellies but I could not convince them otherwise.  We moved on to face painting, magicians and resuscitation lessons. There was time for ambulance tours,rescue boat tours and fire engine tours before the hungries set in.  For the second time in a week or two it was fish and chips in the park with a post prandial beach and pier walk to finish. Phew!

Grandie Day

We started off at the playground and the wind which has been blowing for two days would not let up and it has been the same all day. There is meant to be research somewhere that says kids in the school yard become much more unrulely on windy days.  We have been inside for most of the day however these grandies have found their own entertainments, leaving the adults to gaze wistfully out to sea. A visitor had the temerity to park in our view. Not on this watch.

Spell Estelle

 The Bingo game is still a winner around here but it does not seem to be lasting past two cards worth of concentration. So how to extend the game. Estelle came up with her own idea of spelling out all the words on each piece with the tokens provided. Except that it is one token only for each letter of the alphabet.  We start out ok with wombat and xray, so I say let's try some harder words like astronaut which then involves making extra letters and they have to be round and they have to be black.  Now we have easily passed my 30 min marker on the activity scale and there are plenty more words to get back to.

Jelly Groyne

 The council men have been hovering about for the last two days and I can report that the beach path has been fully repaired with a new bitumenised surface.  I thought I would take a look but I may as well bring the put and the snorkel if I am walking down there anyway.  I did a few throws for my first of the year and my right side felt reasonably loose. I also checked out the jelly situation. This time I went in at the closer groyne. The jellies were about but not as many as the other day. I still retreated when about 10 or 12 started to surround me. They seem to devide the available space like people in a train.  A couple came up to me who I had seen wandering around. They wanted to know all about it. Did you see anything? How do these grass balls form? Where is the artificial reef?  What are tourist guides making per hour anyway?  I picked up a big poo bag that was very recent. They didn't know that tourist guides also cleaned the beach.

black poo bags get hot quick

sticky black top

The Rider

I got this book off the internet after seeing a line about it being "the best book written about sport ever." High praise but I must say, it is up there and I get the gist more because I have ridden a bike and done a few races.  Those who have not ridden a bike may try to after this read or not. A quote from the first page, "I have seen those cafe dwellers as I ride along who have never ridden and their empty lives shocks me."  It took  20 plus years to get translated into English but you can see what he is describing 50 yar ago in todays races. This is a no holds barred insight into what happens during a race, mind games, torment, pain, exhileration, accidents and weather.  Krabbé started racing in his late 20's therefore was always dealing with the young guns and the stalwarts.  The race incidents are illustrated with disturbing factual accounts, as when a race rider looked back as a car was coming.  Like in 1971 when the current Belgian World Champ Jean-Pierre Monseré, wearing the rainbow stripes, looked backwards to gauge his lead as a car drove onto the course killing him.  Krabbé went from Chess master to bike rider to writer and back to chess again and then rode 80km on his 80th birthday just for fun.

Dolphin Dolphout

 We were on the deck trying to answer the lateset set of 25 questions when we were interrupted by the dolphin dance. Such a good thing everytime you see those guys just out there. We have not spied them so far this Summer and although not in a hurry they can get out of sight quickly.  There were a couple very close to shore which reminds me that we should take post prandial walks along the beach but be ready with the snorkel at a moments notice.  I have been on a swim with dolphins in the bay before but I went to them. By the time I was in the water they would probably be 200 meters away.

Jelly Defeat

 The good news is that I think I solved my leaky breather problem.  It was a bit overcast so the view was not as clear and I was confronted with many of the red brown jellies. I tried to make my way towards the end of the rock groyne however the jellies were massing like areoplanes. HaHa.  I am still not sure if the sting is an issue however this time there was no clear path anywhere so I backtracked to get out.  It seemed like a bit of a trudge back so I got the rubbish bag out and filled it halfway. This was the first rubbish haul since Christmas so a reasonably clean beach after the hordes have all gone back.

sand is being sown with grass

a poo bag, shredded tennis ball and plastic bags