November 2020

I always wake early, i’m usually the first one awake, usually because I have to pee. Once I’m awake I can’t go back to sleep, at first, in November it was light early so I would sneak out and go and see if the other kids were up, I think it’s close to or just on 6am, mum says it’s too early to be out making noise, so I just make sure i’m quiet.

I like going seashell hunting, the tide always washes in these pretty Poker, I call them Poker shells because of their shape, they are pointy at the tip. Then it would get hot fast when the sun gets higher, that meant time for a swim and paddle. Jumping off the paddle board is fun. Sometimes I go with mum, but she always goes too far for me and I get tired. So what I do is tie my board leash to mum’s board and she pulls me along. Sometimes I take my goggles and we go to the reef to look at all the fish, after the jelly fish came I stopped swimming, so I would lie on the front of my board and dip my face in the water to see the fish, that way the jellies couldn’t sting me.

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When my grumbly tummy won’t keep quiet I have to go home and eat, my favourite breakfast is either banana pancakes or cereal, sometimes i’m so hungry I could eat both!

The boys are always down at the rocks fishing or looking for crabs, they will spend hours catching crabs and getting pinched. Over at the Ollingers camp we have a big plastic bucket filled with the morning’s catch, there are crabs, sea stars and yesterday we found 3 baby octopus! One of them inked to get away. We make sure we give them fresh water and move them from the hot sun, then later we put them back in the ocean so that they can go home. We also catch lizards too, this is Mango, she lives in the tree next to our camp, she is a Spiny Lizard, and very tame.

We have lots of friends here and we play together every day. We do have to do our boring school work, I like to get mine done quick and fast but Jaxon never wants to do his and always makes a big deal of it. I’m always finished first so I can get back on the water to play. One time there were 10 kids out there goofing around, trying to stand on surf boards or getting a tow on boogie boards.

With mum we paddle down to Pelican Reef and go visit Carolyn, she’s really nice, the beach there has lots of interesting things, like pretty seashells and worn sea glass, not the sharp kind, it’s not as nice to look at, often we find pieces of plastic too, the ocean spits it back on to land saying No Thank You I don’t want human garbage in my water.

One morning we saw a lot of baby turtles hatch, they were Olive Ridley’s, they were so cute, there were too many to count. Coming out of the sand, out of their nest making their way to the ocean. They hatch with the full moon and use the light of the moon to shine the way to the water. It was early in the morning, so maybe their mother buried her eggs extra deep and they had further to come up. They looked like baby dinosaurs. We watched as they flapped their way to the water and take their first swim. New turtles can’t swim deep and stay on the surface, they have to be very careful they don’t end up in somebody’s beak, if you know what I mean…

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I like smell of the fresh cool morning air and watching the Pelicans fly by. There is an Osprey that must live close, we see him every day, he’s really good at fishing and carries the fish away in his talons, it’s really neat to watch. The poor fish must be freaking out way up there out of the water! I also like to collect interesting shells, not like my brother, he collects everything. Not just sea glass and shells, but also crab claws, fish bones, shark heads (without the eyes) and all sorts of gross stuff like that hard, old, wrinkly ball. The sea changes our beach with the full moon, it moves the sand during a high tide, yesterday is made a step in the sand.

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Dean took us out on his fishing boat, that day was so much fun, we had lots of nibbles on the hook, but only reeled in two. They were smart fish and must have said to themselves, uh uh, no way am I falling for the old ‘hook on the line trick’ and shook it free. Hutch did catch one fish, and my Dad caught the other one. We ate them for dinner, we had to, it’s not good to catch and kill fish and not eat them. But the best part of the day was having a turn at driving the boat and being with my friends.

Over at the Ollingers bus we have lots of Lego to play with, I mean lots, they have a great big box full of it. Lily is teaching me how to play the Ukulele, she says that I have to hold it the right handed way even though i’m left handed, I want my own left handed Ukulele. I can play Twinkle Twinkle, but I’m mostly learning to play the notes, i’m not ready for songs yet, but once I learn the 4 notes Lily is teaching me, I will be able to play her song that she wrote. I really like the Ukulele and I’ve put one on my Christmas wish list. It’s a much easier instrument to pack than the piano. Sometimes we play cards, Go Fish is Jaxon’s favourite, and it’s so easy that everyone can play. We also play Kick the Can and Count to 10, which is kind of like Hide & Seek.

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What else, oh, I’m starting to learn to kite, Benji is teaching me to fly the trainer kite and i’m getting pretty good at it. Benji is a wild crazy flyer, I like to control it a little more calmly, not crazy and all over the sky. I can do figure 8’s and feel the power and the point it will pull me up on to my feet. I can also down loop and back roll too, thats fun as long as it’s not a super strong wind. I fly the trainer kite every well nearly every day for about half an hour to an hour so that I can learn what the kite does in the wind and how to control it. The trainer kite pulls me hard, if Benji wasn’t holding on to me I’d go flying, sometimes when a gust comes we both fall over because the wind is so strong.

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One day Mum came home with a harness in my size, her friend brought it down from the United States for me. Benji’s dad hooked me up to a real kite and taught me how to launch, fly and land it. It’s different from the trainer kite because I’m hooked in and the harness takes the pull, I just have to have light fingers and do the steering, like a bike, not like a car. It was so windy that I was slowly moving down the beach, Benji’s Dad, Frederick, just picked me up off my feet with one hand and walked me back. I was scared at first, but Frederick showed me all the parts and told me what to expect. I liked knowing before hand. So I’m just learning on land first before going out onto the water. That part I’m a little nervous about but excited, if Benji can do it, I can too!

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I like it here, I want to stay forever.