Life is good...

Sunday is a big day for me, for all of us on Kwaj I guess.  I can't believe I made it thru without the nap that I've been taking.  I run around like an ant all week after work, then drink a little too much on Saturday, which amounts to 6 beers in 4 hours.  Last Saturday (Feb 14) we got off work early at 3:30.  I rode the bicycle I stole to the cafeteria where the only bike in the bike rack was mine.  I left the bike I stole there, grabbed mine headed to the Kwaj lodge and changed clothes and headed to the gym.  I did my normal half hour of intense workout, then headed to the pool to swim ten laps ( half mile).  I rode back to the lodge threw some laundry in the wash then rode back to town to buy a bike rack.  Then came back to put another load in and then head out to the other side of the island to my lab where the tools are, and put the rack on the back of my newly acquired bike, along with the homemade "basket".  Then I tried to get back quickly because the timing on the washing machines was running out and I didn't want to tie them up.  So I basically did a sprint triathalon after work...then went to the bar and drank a few beers....but made it to sleep by 9pm.  So Sunday....get up at 5am...mess around eat something then head to the beach for volleyball with the strict volley ball crowd at 8am...play til 11am....head to the cafeteria for lunch, eat, then head home to make phone calls back home then head to the marina...go out sailing for 4 hours.  Come back at 4:30, head to the cafeteria, eat, then go home shower and head to the beach for more volleyball.

LIFE...is good

Feb 20, 2015

what I'm about to say is a lifelong ambition of mine....I went surfing today after work.  That's it.  I have a 9' Dewey Weber surfboard that I bought a month ago.  Tonight ...I actually rode the thing...not like once but 8x.  Its a monumental feat in my mind...OH and here are some pics from last weekend.  I went sailing with a guy I met at the pool and his buddy who met us at the Marina.  While I waited on them to get there, because I'm too hyper to be on island time, I snapped some pics of the morning catch.  I'm fairly certain I just need to hang out there with some baggies to get some great filets.  Ono, Mahi mahi, tuna......its all good.   The pictures show mainly Ono....a fish I've never heard of before, but it tastes good.  There is a pic of the sharks that hang out in the marina to eat the scraps from the table where they clean the fish.  The other pics are of the small boat marina on a typical sunday morning.....and then there's a typical Sunday evening Sunset at Emon beach...

 

 

Feb 21, 2015...

 

I found a Thai lady on the island that gives massages.  John, the guy who sold me the nice surfboard, told me about her. It turns out she's his neighbor.  I show up on the bike and John's wife Christy is outside (its their anniversary John told me earlier that day when I called him to give him a surf report)(He said he couldn't go surfing).  She asked me if I was getting a massage.  I wonder if she knew that I knew it was their anniversary.  "Nee" answered the door.   She's a short, Thai woman, that I find out later is my age.  She and I were born in the year of the horse.  Apparently we are hard working hyper people.  I agreed.  She opened the door to their dome (Kwaj dome....no time to explain...) and I see a typical living room (except its round everywhere) with a gray balding guy who never looks up and I assume he is her husband.  Nee ushers me back to a bedroom where the massage table is set up next to a treadmill and maybe a gliding sort of thing used for excercise. 

 

It was a great massage.  Nee can't handle silence, which is fine.  Her broken English is completely understandable.  It was a great massage.  No complaints.  It's only my second professional massage so I don't have much to go on, except that the first will be hard to live up to.  I was so relaxed at the end of the first one that I just wanted to spend the night, right there.  Just shut the damned door and leave me.  She didn't.  Nee's massage was good, but despite getting only 5 hours of sleep the night before, I was not ready to sleep.  Maybe it was the way she crawled up on my back.

 

 

My (surf coach) Shawn invited me to go boating with 3 others tomorrow morning.  He's a good guy who would yell nicely while a wave was about to overtake me at the "Pit".  "GOGOGOGOGO!!!"  Ok so it's not so much coaching as it is cheerleading.  Regardless, I'm getting better.  Anyhow he invited me to a half day of recreational snorkeling off this rock.  Its good to get off this rock.  Here are some pics.  We snorkeled and his friend Tim had a spear fishing gun.  I was looking forward to him getting a fish, because it would mean the sharks come.  Maybe if I were the one shooting getting the fish back to the boat I wouldn't be wishing for sharks.  Only one showed up.  Tim said the sharks in these islands are "assholes".  Here are the pics.  Its a yellowfin tuna he shot , then an Ono he caught later on the line.  We are having a cookout Monday night to eat them.

 





 

 

 

 

 

March 1, 2015....

 

 

I took a walk today with a girl I met.  More about that some other time.  We walked Ocean side just up wind of the run way.  It was really hot, no wind, or very little.  On the way back we stepped out on to a beachy area and I got in the water.  I went in above my waist.  I've never felt current like that before.  I got knocked off balance and in a matter of seconds got swept about 60 feet down the beach before regaining my footing.  It kind of scared me.  One rip current and I would have been gone....well not gone...but out where the waves would have smashed me into the coral at the very least. 

 

 

March 6, 2015

 

 

Someone on the local "swap" posted a BC (buoyancy compensater ? along with an "air2" for $300.  At the shop it sells for $450.  So now I'm going to ad scuba to the list of things to do on the weekend.  Dammit.  There is way too much to do out here.

 

We played Ultimate tonight.  My two lab techs, Ray and James, Phelia, Gary the engineer and way over my head boss that we sub contract from, Greg - the new electrician that is winning me over when he's sober (although he cusses too much) and then after Gary pulled a muscle Katherine showed up.  She is the oldest and wisest of the M children that have come to be the backbone of these games.  Phelia, originally from Jamaica and a great runner, Gary (until his injury), then Katherine and I stomped the competition.  Ray, James and Greg.  They had the height, but not the throwing skill and not the athleticism.