A Detour and a Fish Hawk - April 23rd

Monday.

Seven am, and I’m at work running like a madwoman, scrubbing and sorting and organizing and cleaning. I get off work at four after a good day with colleagues, chatting and joking around the continual roll of work. (Plus, my boss bought me lunch, the steak pie I’d been eyeing at the French bakery).

I had planned to go home and pick up my computer and come back down the street to use the Internet. I hadn't posted any of the blog entries I'd written, and was sadly behind on emails, some of which I really wanted to write. Well, maybe just a quick peek at the beach, first. I’ll walk home that way, I told myself. I walked up the block from work to the parking lot and park area that looks over the beach. Resolutely, I turned my steps toward home. Well, maybe I’ll just stop for one second and look at the water and breathe. Okay, actually, I’m going to climb down and walk in the sand, but toward home. Hey, what are those seagulls doing? It looks like a bunch of fish have gotten trapped around the base of those rocks by the surf, and they’re diving and fishing there. That’s very cool to watch. I wonder if I can see the fish if I walk over that way and oh my god, that’s an osprey, god what a beautiful bird. Hey there seems to be quite an afternoon aquatic afternoon tea going on out here; maybe it will attract the dolphins! I’ll just climb up there and have a look at what the osprey is looking at.

Long story short, I stayed on the rocks for hours. I watched the birds diving and eating fish, saw the osprey (or fish hawk, as they are also called) catch a huge silver fish that flapped like mad then went rigid in its claws, saw a homo sapiens successfully surf fishing with a line and rod, and half a dozen crabs scuttling about, getting smashed by the surf and scuttling right back up the barnacle-covered rocks. The sun set, the wind was strong over the water, and it was gorgeous.

Okay, now to home and a quick shower, then to the Internet.

Monday night in Byron in the off-season is pretty slow. There was only one wireless spot still open by seven, and they’d moved on to their very expensive dinner menu. Somewhat discouraged, I turned back toward home, stopping by the glaringly florescent Wicked Travel backpacker center to use half an hour of free Internet on their not-so-speedy computers and checked in with the essentials of the outside world until the connection speed drove me mad, and rethought dinner. My path took me to Woolies for high-protein organic berry yogurt, a jazz apple happily on special, and a pack of Wallaby Bites, a locally produced cereal and nut compote dipped in chocolate. Now I’m home happily munching, listening to Sinatra, and about to dive into my book, The Porpoise Watcher, a naturalist’s memoirs bought from a local second-hand and swap book shop.

I suppose I'll post these entries someday.

PS- The cockroaches. Still a bummer on principle, but seem to be avoiding my toothbrush now that I’ve stuffed a Clorox wipe into the bottom of the mug. Hypocritically, I find the zillions of tiny lizards climbing the walls very cool. Practically speaking they’re probably carriers of much nastier stuff (read: salmonella) than roaches, but they’re SMALLER than the roaches, and somehow the tiny sticky feet are totally adorable.

PPS- The lighthouse’s beam sweeping over the tropical trees under the stars in my backyard is never going to get old. I’d probably sleep out there if the mosquitos didn’t drive me back indoors.