Kristin's News: Middle of April

Where did the week go?! Dave has been busy out on the boat running our Whale Shark Adventures and the whale sharks have been playing the game with good sightings and multiple sharks most days. School holidays start this weekend and we are hoping to be insanely busy for the next few weeks! We are all ready to go and hopefully the weather will continue to be great. I haven't been out on the shark boat yet, but Dave took the baby Olympus 720SW out and took a shot from the boat of one of our whale sharks swimming by.

It's been a busy time with emails and office work for me as I try to get arriving clients organized and new clients scheduled to make the best use of their time here. Dave is so sweet and bought me some flowers just to brighten my day.

Tilly has been...energetic. She's left the mango tree alone, but last night bit the top off of our new papaya tree that our friends Craig and Bec gave us! It's now in intensive care, high up on a counter. Not sure it can survive a wound like this, but we are going to try!

We are still totally loving the early morning daylight and the three of us head out to the beach most mornings, after a quick stop at the dive centre to make sure everything is on course for the day.

There are tons of shells washed up along the low tide line.

Dora is still of the opinion that everything on the beach is hers...she will let Tilly pick things up and carry them for a short while, but then she runs after her and makes her drop whatever treasure she has. Sometimes Dora will actually carry it around for a while, but often she'll just stand guard over it while Til tries to figure out how to get it back. Tilly is very pleased with herself when Dora allows her to pick something up again!

The rains created a disgusting swamp at the end point of our beach walks. MatildaLily, of course, had to go play in it one particularly hot & humid day. The mud was smelly, sticky and nasty - she was covered in it. A big shake didn't do a thing to dislodge the gunk.

It was low tide and it took a bit of encouragement to get her out deep enough while holding still long enough for me to wash the majority of it off before we got in the car. Gross!

We are trying to discourage the digging thing, but she's so quick and tricky...she'll be laying there quietly and then POW a digging frenzy!

They are being really good about getting back into the car after a few days of being really naughty about it. Tilly still sits on Dora most of the time and Dora's neck is still all red where she's pulled out all the fur. I wonder if it will ever grow back!

Dora very much likes it when Tilly stays in her own space!

I was able to go out for a couple of dives on our dive centre boat this week and it was really nice to get to spend time with the crew and some of our clients who I have only talked to via email. We had two awesome dives with incredible feeding action and many active cleaning stations. I used a wide angle lens for a change and didn't totally hate it, but I still prefer to shoot macro - the creatures just have such neat expressions. But it's nice to try something else and have a little variety in my images for a change.
Anglerfish and baitfish