Music is my lifeline

Sunday afternoon and the tide is out, the sun is shining and I'm listening to Nightmares on Wax on my computer. Music is a real lifeline for me here. The fear of being without the security blanket of my music meant that as well as my computer which holds a lot of music, I also have two different MP3 players in case one breaks!

Which, given the climate and the lifespan of nearly all electrical equipment out here, is extremely likely.

If I'm feeling unhappy or lonely or just wanting to chill out, I get to plug into my ipod and escape into the world of music. I also have some audio books on the big ipod and that is another way of relaxing if I'm too tired to read or if the electricity is off and I'm still too awake to sleep.

Last night was party night. I got my first Tai be nomination for not doing boat maintenance that day. I was working at the time, but boat maintenance is supposed to be compulsary for everyone who has dived that week and so it was a fair nomination. Luckily, there was an excess of Tai be nominations this week (4 other people hadn't done boat maintenance, someone got locked in the toilet, someone else knew the toilet lock was broken but didn't tell anyone, and various other misdemeanours) so I didn't get enough votes to 'lose'....

The award went to Charlie for the second week running for something she did whilst drunk (after her snorkel test) on the last party night! Happily, we also now have an alternative to the alcoholic snorkel test - but it does involve cleaning the water filter, and so I suspect that most people would still opt for the drunken option.

I don't support the snorkel test as punishment in particular, but I'm coming round to the idea of the tai be itself. It usually is accompanied by much hilarity and humility and shouldn't be taken too seriously. Everyone gets a chance to defend themselves, and this is usually one of the funniest parts of the evening.

Anyway, after we'd done the tai be and sua be, I decided I wasn't feeling in a particularly drinking mood and took myself off to the beach with my ipod. It was full moon and so I decided to hold my own private full moon party on the beach and found myself dancing barefoot in the moonlight enjoying the temperature (warm but not too humid) and the beautiful location. The tide was out and it was so peaceful. I felt pretty free and alive dancing on the beach - just so long as I didn't think too hard about the fact that the moonlight was so bright, it caused moon shadows and so that meant that

anyone looking out would have seen me dancing like a madwoman.

I find that I'm pretty busy most of the time at the moment. I did five dives again this week plus had loads of managing work and loads of accounts spreadsheets and other admin and logistics work to get through. As a consequence, my favourite moments are those when I just get to sit back and

just take in the clean air and beautiful view, while doing my yoga on my veranda in the mornings, from my hammock or as last night, alone on the beach.

Me and my hammock are definitely still in the honeymoon phase of our relationship and I'm hoping we never start taking each other for granted or falling out with (of?!) each other.

Other news from site - one of our boat marshalls and boat captains spotted a manta ray on the surface while the divers were out diving. I saw my first guitar fish and something that could have been a sea snake. Unless it was a kind of eel. I got to eat aubergine for lunch twice this week (that always makes me happy) and we had soft bread at two breakfasts. We had our expedition 'goals' meeting with the staff which was pretty successful this time and involved all staff, including the boat drivers and local staff. Our dive manager's boyfriend got stung by a stingray whilst out measuring sea cucumbers. He's fine now but there was quite a bit of initial panic at first. Our medic knew what to do (bathe area with hot/boiling water) and there don't seem to be any ill after effects. Justin has now taken the baton for being ill and has been in bed for the past two days with a fever. He seems much better today thankfully. Oh, and we're now well into series 4 of Buffy, (our nighttime entertainment) which I'm afraid to report is extremely disappointing so far. Might have to request that someone send us a care package of some decent dvds - either tv series or films - for when we get to the end of series 5 of Buffy.