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Published: August 27th 2010
Well, here we go, getting back in to blogging again, which will also serve as an aide memoir for Caroline as she can be kept fully up to date on my adventures. Blogging now takes on another guise as its letting Caroline see what hardships I have to put up with.
You all know that I am on Christmas Island, that’s right where Father Christmas lives! Here I am marooned on a tropical island, 2400K’s from the West Coast of Australia and 300K’s from Jakarta in Indonesia.
What I am not going to do is tell you anything about what I am doing here, that is work and I don’t want to compromise all the very hard work my colleague’s put in here.
You may consider this a bit dramatic but here on the island, and I saw him last night, is a photographer and reporter, taking pictures of what ever he can get. He is not breaking any laws and sat behind me at dinner the other night, so his presence is well known, but it’s the point of it, when everyone is doing everything they possibly can “to do it right” one photograph could just
tell another story, I hope you understand.
Anyway enough, guff lets get on with it.
I have a 2 bedroom apartment that I share with an IT bloke in Poon Saan, it’s a pretty little Island, I think about 20k’s long and about 15k’s wide.
I can reliably inform you that there are 1403 residents on the Island, mainly Malay and Chinese, there are 3 dogs and 1 set of traffic lights.
The island is volcanic, and doesn’t really have any beach at all, as the cliffs are around 60ft high. We are surrounded by the Indian Ocean that just seems to go on forever and as I sit on my communal balcony, the Indian Ocean is about 500 mtrs away. Some people have to pay a fortune for a paradise like that.
The Island was discovered on Christmas Day in 1643 by William Mynors, hence its name, I guess Easter Island was possibly the same? Maybe also Thursday Island and Friday Island etc.
If you look at a map of Christmas Island, its basically the shape of a standing dog without a head and Poon Saan is located at about the back of
the neck, when the dog with no head is standing to the right.
If you started there and followed the coast around the front of his neck would be North East Point, then coming down his chest you would get to Steep Point, Margret Knoll, Greta and Dolly Beach.
The Island was and is mined for Phosphate which is used in agriculture I think, most of the roads are just compacted phosphate, but seem very hard, though there are a couple of main arterial roads through the center.
My apartment is on the first floor of a block that has 12 apartments, a huge communal double kitchen, laundry, ironing room, lounge and TV room, though we do have a TV in our own rooms and yes I have to do my own laundry, ironing, cleaning and cooking.
The reason there was a delay in my doing any blog work is that I only got my laptop yesterday and I can only get Internet access at work, which is a drag. Previously I could not down load my photo’s so had to wait until my laptop turned up so I can type a draft then up load
at work.
If you came to Christmas Island and didn’t like Chinese food, you are in trouble, there are a couple of good ones and about 100 meters from our place there is one called the “Lucky Ho”, yep, that’s exactly what we thought as well.
On Saturday nights there is an open air cinema and for 5 bucks you can either sit on the grass or on the benches provided and watch the movie, last week was date night which was good, but last night was sex in the city 2 and I had already seen that with Caroline it was ok, but I wouldn’t rush to see it again.
Next Saturday is Beneath Hill 60, which is an excellent movie and I would suggest you all finish reading this then, go straight out the movies and watch it (or maybe just buy it when it comes out on DVD).
The difficulty with the Island is transport, I don’t have a car so I use the shuttle buses to get me to work and I usually get a lift home.
My next door neighbour Pete, yep the guy in the picture holding the Robber
crab, has got a car, I may and I stress may inherit it, but I am not holding my breath, went out last week with another guy Mike, an Irish lad from Dublin, we went off exploring the island and had a brilliant time.
We drove down to the Grotto which is a natural pool with a sea inlet and a sandy bottom it’s only about 5ft deep, the only thing is the sea water get forced through the rock and sounds like a jet engine winding up, which takes a bit of getting used to. A rope has been fixed to let you get down and sort of safely in to the water, but it was well worth a visit.
My neighbour Pete is fishing mad and he always takes his rod around with him, so after the grotto we drove off down towards the settlement and saw a guy just putting a pretty large trevally (Fish) in the back so we stopped and asked him where his fishing spot was.
He sort of reluctantly said he would show us and we followed him through the jungle for about 50 yards to a clearing. I had
the shock of my life as I walked past some rocks a huge plume of water rose in to the air and I found it to be a blowhole.
As we were walking down this fella told us to watch out for the birds who were nesting on the ground at the edge of the scrub, I looked down and this gorgeous bird with thy sweetest face just looked at me, so I carefully walked past her.
I asked this chap what it was and he said it was a Blue Footed Booby, which I don’t think it was, I now think it was a Brown or Common Booby.
Now let me tell you about the crabs, it’s not me that has them, the whole Island has them , 120 Million of them in fact, but I don’t know who has counted them?
The red crabs are xxxx and are most active at night, you do see a few every day just walking around but not too many, its between October and XXXX when the fun starts, they say its one of the seven natural wonders of the world when they migrate and they leave their
burrows in the Jungle and walk to the water to spawn then walk back when the deed is done.
We see evidence of the parks and wildlife people starting to get the PVC barriers out as they put these up to direct the crabs so they can cross the roads using tunnels, I think, in safety.
Equally some roads just have to be closed due to the amount of crabs on the move, which will be a sight to see.
There are other species of crab on the Island Blue Crabs, which are just a standard, looking crab that is blue and a Robber crab that is quite unique.
I have strangely sort of got a soft spot for the Robber Crabs, they are big, see photos and are really slow, they are not aggressive and just seem to wander around doing their own thing, the other morning I went in to work and there were 2 of them, one of them had climbed on top of the wheelie bin and was trying to get the contents out of the bin, which was amazing.
A couple of things about the crabs, the Red Crabs are considered
to be in Plague proportions and they loose about 2 million of them every year but the Robber crabs are not and I have been told if you run over one there is a$1000.00 dollar fine.
Last night we were coming back from the settlement and one was in the middle if the road, said to Peter shall we get out and move him or her and the guy in the back said the locals don’t like you moving them as they have their own route to wherever they are going
The colours of the Robber Crabs is amazing, they a Blue, Purple, red and are just amazing, I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to be here it is quite unbelievable I have to say and look forward to Caroline coming over, she will just love it.
Finally there is an Island newspaper called “The Islander” it tells you all about what is happening in the communities on the Island. We will be coming in to Territory Week 24th September to 4th October, but I don’t know much about it and will endeavor to find out and report back.
The Islander also gives
Swimming Hole
This nice little swimming hole fills itself up with the waves.you what’s on at the cinema, tide times, public notices and other information like that.
So that’s it for this one from Christmas Island, I know Caroline has also done a blog, which I look forward to reading, I will update you as soon as I can.
Andy
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Helen Sheridan
non-member comment
crabs
Hi Andy - What an interesting place. Watched an hour long show on tele last week on the Red Crabs on Christmas Island and the Crazy Ants - fascinating! Love Helen