Latitude 12

Once more coming to you from latitude12°28′S, longitude 130°50′E.

I still have to pinch myself. Ouch! Worse than the midgies. Who did that? Swimming at Nightcliff pool. Sunset. Pool 28C. Red sky, palms waving in the tropical breeze, travel brochure tourisma, lapping up and down, ouch! I just hit that man in the next lane with my left hook. Sorry! Hmmmm, not impressed with the brain numbing whack he’s just received, but uncertain about the apology. He swims on. Anonymous, goggled, grumpy. Ouch! I did it again. What is this tonight? This time I thump a woman with sturdy biceps and presumably a reinforced skull, but she doesn’t miss a beat, nuh, ploughing on, left, right, left, right.

Are they are pulling the lane ropes in tighter tonight, or am I getting fatter? I try to keep my arms to myself, which constrains my naturally flamboyant style.

I’ve cleared the water with my out of control freestyle, (who is that woman?), and I’m now hugging the edge of the pool, transfixed by that fireball once again disappearing over the Timor Sea. It’s not like its unexpected. What is this then? And I’m not the only one staring across to the edge of the known world. Bit of a line up here tonight. What a bunch of nutters. There goes the sun, check off another day in Paradise. One day closer to eternity.

Mud crabs on the waterfront

What do you need to have a good bit of fun on a Monday evening after a tough day at the knowledge factory? A hammer, a slowly setting August sun, a good bottle of wine, a long-time friend, and a medium sized mud crab purchased from the Parap Market.

All those ingredients were collected up tonight. My friend from one of the Gulf of Carpentaria communities was in town for a professional development course. What better way to celebrate our little time together than to pack a picnic and head off to Fannie Bay to watch the deep red sun disappear behind the Timor Sea.

I don’t know how you are supposed to separate crab meat from the shell, but my method was passable, if inelegant. With trusty hammer in hand, the crab placed on the concrete slab below the Council picnic table, we broke the shell like that – whack! But I tell you what, you need to whip away the crab once you’ve done what needs to be done – those ants are right onto your dinner otherwise. You should have seen how quickly those little beast raced after any scraps of meat with indecent haste. The same with the miniscule biting insects that munched on us tonight – we ate the crab while the wee biting things ate us. There’s a lot of consumption going on up here in the Territory.

Another day in Paradise.