As I sip some organic jasmine tea in a biodegradable cup, I realise that I am alone for the first time in a long time. And dang, it feels good. I worked every single day this summer for over two months straight, with only Saturday afternoons off. I know many of you laugh when I say ‘work’ as most of my pictures on facebook are mostly of me underwater, on a boat, up a mountain or on a slippery slide. But my job is actually very high energy, both emotionally and physically, and sometimes I find myself working from 6am until 10pm at night. Actually, I should rephrase that – every second day or so I find myself working from 6am-10pm at night. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s been almost a 2 months since the summer season ended and I am back to working just two or so weeks straight with a couple of days break in between the next two week stint. The point, as you can see, is my life does not permit me to spend much contemplative time to sit, think and write. Not only that, I am living some kind of fairytale life that I just feel bad for bragging about to all you poor souls who don’t get to play with dolphins every day. Island life is another story. The World suddenly becomes the island. Friends, romances, trials and tribulations – what happens on the island stays on the island. There really should be a movie about it, “CIMI Staff Exposed”. It becomes hard to relate to those outside of this little bubble. It also takes time; time that does not exist.
Hence, I am finally writing about my summer on the island a few months after it passed. Summer was a time at Catalina Island Marine Institute (CIMI) where there was new energy; a change in routine, a work-hard play-hard attitude was maintained. Every day, between breaks or as soon as we were off the clock we would jump in the ocean. We would hike 10miles (16km) into town up rugged terrain, all 16 of us, with bottles of wine and take over the town. We would do cartwheels on paddleboards and play with octopuses in the kelp below. We would kayak to the otherside of the island with surfboards in tow and camp on the beach. We would dive with Giant Black Sea Bass 70ft under the water’s surface before breakfast. Between the afternoon shift and dinner the girls would dance their butts off to Yoga Booty Ballet DVDs in the Marine Mammals hall. There were times I’ll never forget, and times that I’ll never remember! Ha. Summer on Catalina was one of the highlights of my life, and perhaps you can think of it as a good thing I never blogged about it because I was too absorbed in it! I came to realise over the summer that these moments I’m living here in this little island dream world are the memories I’ll one day cherish as some of the best in my life. The camaraderie or working together so closely, every day, and making the most of every moment brought me very close to my colleagues over the summer and it’s easy for me to say I have made some friends for life. Despite my lack of communication over the summer, I took lots of pictures, and here are some happy snaps that summarise some of the moments I shared with some of the most amazing people I’ll ever meet.
Oh, Summer in the USA.
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