Jacksonville Beach

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We've had a couple of questions asking us what it's like where we live so I thought I would take a few photo's to show everyone. I got up this morning and went down for a surf and it was such a beautiful day so I thought I would take some photo's of the beach and the Pool area. The first pictures are of the beach out in front of our house to the left and right - the main shopping/restaurant area is where the pier is. The other pictures I have included are of our pool area in the apartment block and the spa/jacuzzi. This thing is heated to around 40 degrees and is just awesome....Anyway, the main reason for this is to entice some of you guys to come and visit us, so when it's cold over there in the middle of winter, don't forget you can always come and stay with us.......

The other pictures are of our new pet 'Balentine' who is a Siamese fighting fish. For those who don't know, whilst we were in Darwin I bought Fiona a fish, under the agreement that if she could look after it for long enough we could think about getting a dog. Well, poor little fella lasted about 10 days before he was riding the porcelain whirl pool to fish heaven. So being the dutiful husband I ducked down to the fish store and bought another, hoping this one could do better....well I was wrong. He lasted about 3 days.....think we overfed him. Everyone knows that three's a charm - well apparently it's not. Fish number three didn't even make it past 24 hours, but we think its cause Fi washed out the fish bowl using dish washing detergent and may not have rinsed it thoroughly enough.......an honest mistake anyone could have made.

Anyway, given Fiona's sordid past with fish I thought it was time to have another crack so I went to the local pet store to buy one of those black googly eyed things, but I decided to ask the lady for here most robust, hardy and durable fish that can pretty much live through anything and she pointed me in the direction of these Siamese Fighting Fish called 'Betta's' in the US. Apparently one of these fish was in a small amount of water in a zip lock bag and was misplaced for three weeks, and with no food, no water change it lived!!! That's the fish for us!!!

So not only do we have a hardy and durable fish who can put up with our maltreatment, he's quite attractive, will also kill other fish, doesn't need to be walked, and there's no poop to clean up - sounds like the ultimate pet to me.

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Photos

Jax Beach
The water is still a bit cold at the moment, so cold in fact that it killed all the jelly fish off the coast so they've been washing up onto the beach recently. It's good though, means there are none in the water. Fortunately they are completely harmless.

The Beach to our Left
This is the beach running north up towards Atlantic Beach

The Beach to our Right
This is the beach running South towards Jacksonville Beach

The Pool Deck
This is the pool deck with pretty comfy pool side furniture. Unfortunately there is no-one to bring you cocktails while you lay here (except Fiona, and rumour is she spits in them!).

The Fish
He's made it about 10 days now - he's got a 15 day guarantee so hopefully he either kicks the bucket before then so we can get another one, or he lives for a while.