Abrolhos Islands Surprise!

March 15, 2023

Oh, what a surprise I had install for those Flotsam and Jetsam volunteers, I was so excited but you really couldn’t tell. Little did they know that one of them was actually the surprise… where do I start…

It was so crazy busy the week before heading to the Abrolhos Islands for our annual Flotsam and Jetsam clean up which starts on Clean Up Australia Day. So when the boat heading out from the wharf at 5.30am on Friday after much planning and organising… it was like phew we’re on our way… you can relax, it felt so wonderful.

On arrival we unloaded our stores and luggage then everyone came to my camp for a cuppa and hot cross buns. It was such a nice day too, perhaps a little too hot.

We had to prepare for a visit from some passengers off the True North, a luxury charter vessel. They wanted to hear all about Flotsam and Jetsam Art Exhibition. It was a nice opportunity to meet some new people, also my niece works on that boat.

Then we were straight into collecting rubbish (flotsam) off Pelsaert Island and wow did the volunteers work hard. After so many years of cleaning up we were still able to find enough rubbish, although it is getting less.

Saturday we did yoga on our jetty at sunrise.

Then dropped off some people to work with Dr Chris Surman from Halfmoon Bioscience, they worked at cutting ropes out of the mangroves. The rest of the volunteers were dropped further up the island. Arriving back at Basile Island around 3.30pm, we really managed to collect a lot of stuff over these two days. Then it was straight into organising our little surprise event.. I was too excited!! Did I mention that already!

The festival lights were set up, our outdoor Gin Bar was ready, we added some items to the memorial pole. I was crazy, running around telling everybody they had to be ready by 5.30pm, I needed to do the memorial before it was too dark for the surprise! I read the poem standing with the ocean scene behind me then introduced our special guest singer Noah Humich. Noah walk up to the microphone dressed in a tuxedo! Even then the Flotsam volunteers were a bit unsure with what was happening, when Noah stood on the edge of the island in his tuxedo with sun setting behind him just gave all of us and instant feeling of curiosity - remembering Noah was just considered another flotsam volunteer amongst us…

Then it happened, Noah started singing a Time to Say Goodbye by Andrea Bocelli, it was unbelievable!!! There was so much emotion in the crowd, smiling, crying, hugging - a true sense of connection between our team and an overwhelming sensation of being part of something.

I felt truely blessed that we could have Noah perform for us, it truly made this years Flotsam collection trip one of the most memorable moments in my life!