The Last 2 Busy Weeks

Sorry I’ve been bad about blogging! Its been a busy 2 wks! We have been harvesting pearls and selecting oysters by size and getting them ready for the operations in March. Its been pretty full on. Wake up at 5:30 am and work until 5 pm. The harvesting is pretty cool. Some really different pearls too, a lot of huge gold ones. They are from the previous company and these oysters were huge! The size of dinner plates. I get to dig inside the oyster with my fingers and find the pearls. That bit is fun, but all the prep to do a harvest is not so much fun. Just a lot of labor intensive steps that take forever! Oh and we have been having some oyster ceviche and fried oyster muscle and it was so freakin delicious! I guess we sell it for $80/kg so that's pretty good! But we should really open a fine dining restaurant in the Hyatt and these fancy places where we have showrooms. Its tastes like a conch with the consistency of a scallop! Yum!!

I’m thoroughly enjoying my Sunday off today! I’ve been crocheting! I crocheted a square coaster so far and I’m working on a beanie now. I will have to stock up on more yarn when I get home. It is kind of relaxing and chills me out listening to music and crocheting. Such a geek I know! I’ve almost finished one book and I haven’t even broken out the paint set yet, so I’m not bored yet! Today and last Sunday the village kids came and Lita and I played with them by our house. Last week we played with play dough and origami. Today we played tag with Tomek as the monster and I was safe. Tomek is huge and scary already to these little kiddos and some of them were yanking on my clothes and even crying they were so scared of him! Lol! Then we had a drawing contest and we hid lollipops in the yard and they went and found them. We are getting more and more each Sunday. The word is out that those bule (foreigners) are pretty fun! There were 22 of them today from 4-15 years old!

My bum leg is starting to feel better. Less tight and sore, so that’s good. I did break down and call our orthopedic doctor friend back in FL and he said I tore my gastenemic muscle in my calf. But it will heal by itself and in a few weeks. So no worries there! I finally got paid and got my vacation time sorted. Sounds like I will the operations here in mid March then go to Bali and do the operation there in late March, and then be home from April 9th -May 1st. Will spend a bit of time at home and then go see James in the Caribbean, where ever he may be at that time. Things are definitely going better with Sugi. She talks slower to me, just to me, when she is talking to someone else around me its still 100 miles a minute. Think she is warming up to me a bit. I've been asking about her kids and husband and things. She gets frustrated with how things are done in the office, and explains the problems to me. You know there is drama in every job!
We received a delivery of oysters on our ship from Bali too. We took a trip out in the bay to check the depths of our long lines. That was a fun afternoon to just get out and spend some time on the ship. My boss also came in for a few days and he brought steak and sausage! What a treat! I hunted down some cheese in Kalabahi village, but its Kraft singles and come block of processed crap with more ingredients than cheese should have! Ha! My bahasa Indonesia is getting better too! This week when we did the selection, Sugi wasn’t there for 2 days and I had to work directly with the girls and give instructions and things all in Indonesian. They are all really nice and want to help me and they want to learn English too. I sat with them for lunch one day and they all wanted to pose with me for pictures on their cell phones and befriend me on facebook!

We did another muck dive this afternoon, and it was pretty mucky. Not much to see except mud and sticks and soft corals. Daniel assures us that muck diving is better in the dry season. We had time and air left so we went outside the bay and around the corner to a pretty island. The current was ripping but we did a great wall dive. Really fantastic, similar to Fijian wall dives I’ve done. Lots of colors and fish, healthy corals, and lots of action on the reef. Another busy week ahead with more harvesting and conditioning the oysters for their operation in March!