Cargo cult (aka internet shopping)

Population:  6

The cyclone and the belly flu both blew over and the seas (and stomachs) are calm again.  The pontoon broke its mooring and lost the engine.  We had to drag it out of the water with the tractor at the peak of the king tide while the winds were howling and the sea was churning.

The family got the boat into the water today and went for a supplies run to town.  It was so exciting to watch the boat come in and unload boxes and boxes of fresh supplies  Not having access to any shops does take a little getting used to.  I haven’t even touched my purse since I got here.  No money.  No keys.  No credit cards.  Ahhhhhh, it’s nice to be off the grid. 

I thought it might be a good idea to develop my own personal cargo cult.  I didn’t think I would have to sit sadly on the beach with a scale model of a boat made out of bark and twigs and a pretend radio made out of tin cans.  I thought internet shopping would make that unnecessary in the modern world.  Alas, I found out the hard way that eBay and most on-line stores don’t deliver to PO boxes.  Street address!!!  You’ve got to be kidding me!  There are no roads on the island and even the “road less traveled” is miles away from here.   The mailman sure isn’t going to swim the 20 miles to the island to deliver mail.  We just pick it up from the post office whenever someone is in town.

So I had better find some bark and twigs and maybe a couple of tin cans.  Or ship things to my Mum’s place and have her forward them to the PO box.  Where there’s a will, there’s a way.  Otherwise, I’ll just have to go cold turkey on consumerism.

School started in earnest on Wednesday.  The school of the air provides very detailed lesson notes and activities lists as well as library books, puzzle boxes, craft supplies.  More than we could ever get through.  The boys are exceedingly polite and surprisingly follow all directions without arguing.  Really very sweet boys.

After school on Friday we went for a drive to the vast sand flats about 10kms from the house.  The landscape is spectacular.  Huge sand dunes give way to rolling sandy scrub land and then a huge bay as white as snow with unnaturally blue water.  They were telling me that a paleontologist had visited several years ago and found dinosaur eggs in the sand dunes.  They were all black and charred because the local aborigines had used them as cooking pots.

I’m still in awe of this place.  Everywhere I turn there is something amazing.  I was . . . ummm . . . on the porcelain throne last week when I noticed the exposed stone walls around the bathroom are huge blocks of fossilized sea life.  I could say I almost peed myself with the excitement of discovery . . but that might be taking cause and effect a bit far.  No need for magazines next to the dunny in this place.  You can just study the walls.