Surfing and Sea Turtles - April 9th

This morning we woke up and had a light (post Easter feasting) brekky. We skyped home for a bit, then split up for exercise and sunshine, Ben for a run and me to the beach.

I grabbed my surfboard, put out the rest of the laundry (which practically baked dry while I was hanging it) and headed for the beach. The water was perfect, the sun so bright and the surf so calm you could see straight through the breaking waves.  The surf was “small and clean,” (little-ish waves with a clearly defined break that runs across the top of the wave parallel to the shoreline) which I’m discovering is my favorite. I paddled out past the breakers and hung out on my board, paddling around a bit, doing push-ups as practice for rising to my feet on breaking waves, finding the balance point of the board and developing the muscle memory. I also started playing with sitting on the board, which on a shortboard is way harder than it sounds, and also very fun. It’s a bit like one of those bucking bronco rides, and leads to a fair amount of somersaulting into the waves. The water was sparkly and blue, and I was in heaven. (Although the people dying of laughter a few hundred yards away might have been enjoying the free sea rodeo, I was having a great time and damn near in stitches myself.)

As will happen from time to time in the sea, especially when not surrounded by a school of other humans, sharks begin circling around the edges of my thoughts. I try not to worry about it; either you’ll get bitten or you won’t, and you probably won’t. Besides, I have this great protection over water amulet bought for me by a friend, and that’s surprisingly comforting. But, when sharks pop into my head I have a look around, as is smart to do.

I looked around, over my shoulders and into the surf and below through the feet and feet of clear turquoise water, left and forward and right, just in time to spot a brown head surface just a few feet away. My breath fled my chest in happiness. It was a green sea turtle.

I love sea turtles, but green are, at least right now, far and away my favorite. I’ve seen a hawksbill and a loggerhead in the wild before, a few out by Julian Rocks in Byron Bay and one in Isabela, Puerto Rico, and here, in the very same wave as myself, was a green sea turtle. I paddled full steam ahead for a better look, and freaked the poor guy out. He swam up a few yards, and I followed along at a more respectful distance, paddling parallel to the shore and lifting myself up on the board every time the turtle paused for a better look.

It was perfect and divine.

At length the turtle swam out to sea and I headed back in, catching a great wave on my way, bodysurfing like a rocket toward the shore and rising into a full crouch before sinking into the foam over the shallow water. I was on my way back home to meet Ben, as we had a plan to catch the 2:45 to Ballina, a nearby town, to check out the local KFC. Everything has been better here, and we’ve seen telly commercials for KFC have made our mouths water. So we reconvened at home and headed to the bus stop, where we had a very informative chat with a bus driver.

There were two flaws with our plan. One, it being Easter Monday, the buses were running a Sunday schedule, which meant there was no 2:45 bus to Ballina, and no return bus after the 5pm.

Also, the KFC in Ballina caught fire several weeks ago.

So we revamped the plan! We came home, chillaxed, wandered around town (at which point I bought a five dollar awesome wood carved fruit bowl, for which I’ve been scouting for ages, and the memoirs of a cetacean researcher that I’ve been eyeing for weeks at a used book store. To be clear, I bought both the book and the fruit bowl from the used book shop. The guy said it was on sale there because his family largely eats pineapples, and the bowl isn’t pineapple shaped.) We wandered around town for a while, stopped into the didgeridoo and hemp shop and saw a guy hawking amazing wooden flutes made from repurposed furniture and met a woman who said she’d seen a video on youtube of a whale surfacing near a boat on someone was playing a flute, and only swimming away once the guy stopped playing. We walked about town, Ben bought an apricot pie from the local bakery, and I stopped at the Green Garage to buy a tomato for my five thirty am breakfast sandwich tomorrow (I’ve happily got the opening shifts this week, and will have afternoons free for slacking and slouching and shenanigans).

I’m sure there’s more to say, but it’s very nearly seven pm here, and that means it’s time to chase down the last, and hugely important, objective of the day: Chicken Schnitzel. We were introduced to this fabulous food at our cousin’s birthday shindig, and have been in love with it since. We had it on the train on the way to Byron. We bought schnitzel patties from Woolies and made ourselves a barbeque of them. And tonight, it’s definitely schnitzel night again. The local dive bar opens at seven, so I’ve gotta run. Ciao!