Polo Top

Woohoo!!! Look at my new business top with its embroidered logo :-) I have a red polo and a white polo as well for variety.

Day Lilly

I spent some time recently with a friend's sister
teaching her some skills with the camera. This Day Lilly with fresh rain on it was one of the subjects we shot.

Close encounter

This Brown Booby came and hovered over our heads while we were on the cliff top overlooking the golf course. It stayed above us for at least 15 seconds showing curiosity in what we were doing.

Margaret

Margaret visited the Island a week ago to do some work in relation to the Historical exhibit. We hit it off - she loves photography as well. We spent a morning together going to a few places with great views and nesting birds.

Nesting

Red tailed tropic birds have started nesting. Before people came to the Island, they had no predators, so they nest on the ground underneath bushes (easy to get up close but difficult to photograph). Sadly, this makes them vulnerable to feral cats. There is a baiting trial targetting feral cats at the moment, so hopefully it will be successful.

Smooth-handed ghost crab

These crabs come in a few colours. This is the first I have seen and is very pink. My information only says that they can be tinged with a little bit of pink. The author obviously hadn't seen this one!

Ghost crabs dig burrows in the sand to hide in. Someone squashed the opening to this crab's burrow so it was re-excavating.

Purple Crab

Finally! Evidence that purple crabs are alive and well on CI :-)

These Purple crabs are different to the Purple crabs on Cocos. They are like the Red crab in appearance, while the Cocos Purple is like the Blue crab - it has cheek stubble.

Miserable

This Kestral wasn't very happy. I think it got caught by one of the waves at Lilly beach.

Beached

The waves at Lilly beach can catch people, fish and birds by surprise. This little fish got thrown up onto the beach.

Jelly Fungus

I was excited about finding this fungus, because it's the first in the "jelly" family that I've found. Named because they look and feel like jelly.

Brown Wasp

Another illusive insect that I've been trying to photograph. These wasps don't stay still for long.

Grass-Yellow Butterfly

These butterflies aren't very co-operative about opening their wings when they aren't flying, so it's hard to work out exactly which type of Grass-Yellow butterfly this is.

Striped Bug

A cool looking bug, but I have no idea what it is.

View from Platform

Looking back towards the conveyor system coming down the cliff.

Cantalever Platform

There wasn't any ship loading on the day, so we couldn't go up into the cantalever, but we were able to walk out around the platform.

Bagging

Some of the phosphate is bagged. The rest is transferred directly into ship Holds.

Covered Conveyor

After going through a huge dryer at a ridiulously hot temperature, the phosphate is transported down to the ship yard in a covered conveyor.

Start of Conveyor

At the processing plant, phosphate is moved from the storage yard on this open conveyor belt.

Phosphate Pile

The newly sifted phosphate is stockpiled before getting loaded onto a truck.

Limestone waste

The limestone is removed and stockpiled. It gets crushed and used to resurface the dirt roads.

Sifting Phosphate

This machine separates the limestone rock from the phosphate dirt.

Delivering Phosphate

Raw phosphate being unloaded ready for sifting.

Hard Hat

Me with a hard hat - mandatory on the Mine Tour.

Mining Tour

Joy, who is the Environmental officer for Christmas Island Phosphates (CIP) took Steve, Darren and myself on a Mining Tour. It was very interesting. There hasn't been any active mining for about 10 years. All the phosphate that is collected was mined and stockpiled prior to this. At the moment CIP are applying for more mining leases so they can remine old sites. They are very environmentally conscious, so don't want to touch any areas that currently hold natural jungle.

Allison with Robber crab

I picked up the Robber crab too, but I thought you all might get bored with that, so here's one of me next to a big purple Robber. He/she was hanging around this fallen Aranga Palm. It's one of their favourite foods.

Darren holding Robber crab

I think from the look on Darren's face, he was having evil thoughts about eating this Robber crab. We successfully diverted his attention by plying him with fresh coconut topped up with Kahlua - yum!

Steve with a Robber crab

Steve and Darren came over from Victoria to spend a week with us. A guy who has lived on CI for many years showed us how to pick up a Robber Crab. Normally they get very nervous when you get close to them, but this one seemed fairly happy because it had just been fed some fresh coconut.

Pencil Urchin

I spotted this urchin hiding in a crevice while I was snorkelling. I am continually amazed at the tiny places that these creatures can squeeze themselves into.

Beach-comber

I collected quite a few odd bits and pieces washed up on the beaches so that I could participate in some "Art Adrift" workshops while I was on Cocos. I've started to make a "Refugee Boat" that will be going in an exhibition mid August. Simon will take it back with him on his next business trip. I will photograph it before he takes it though, and put it on the blog.

Rat

This rat was enjoying it's feed of fresh coconut.

Thong "Blaze"

Paths through the coconut palms on Direction Island (Cocos Keeling) were marked by thongs like this one nailed to trunks.