Work Experience

Sarabelle finished her work experience Friday. Tenth grade students spend one week trying out a job. There were hundreds to choose from, but Sarabelle knew exactly which one she wanted: the most sought after position of the bunch. First come, first served, so she turned her forms in the very next morning after they were handed out and made sure her application was marked number one. She got it.



She spent four of the five days -- one taken off to perform with the school's jazz band at the Eisteddford competition doing Joe Cocker's version of "The Letter" and coming in third place -- getting up early for the trip down to Port and working as a deck hand on a dive boat. And not just any dive boat, but the dive boat.



Here she is coming in from a long day out on the water.



Even though she got to go out in the submersible five times and saw a school of squid and a group of sea turtles sleeping on the bottom the first day alone, it wasn't all fun and games.



In spite of the weather, only a few people got seasick and Sarabelle was not among them. More fortunately, she did not have to do any deck swabbing.

Elle and I stayed down in town all day, fuel prices here being even worse than they are in Florida. What did we do to occupy ourselves? Well, we packed up her school books and a blanket and planned to get some work done, but instead after we dropped Grice off at school we had breakfast at our favorite cafes; went for a walk around Mossman Gorge, the most visited national park in Australia (partly because it's a local hangout) and where all the water in the district comes from...









...made several visits to the library where we read and played chess; window shopped; checked the mail; got ice cream; and played in the park.


We should come home from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day with new experience and character.

-- Henry David Thoreau