Day seven And now to work. My task was a simple one, a ghost had been disturbing the passage of anyone that got to close to a certain beach. I got the others to drop me ashore and ringed myself with protective magics. I then cast a seeking spell and was led to the foot of a boulder like cliff. I climbed and came to a shallow depression in which a tiny trickle of water ran out of the rocks to gather in a puddle. The spirit showed itself then and attempted to dissuade me from being there. I communicated with it and cast a calming spell. This had a rather unfortunate effect.
	The water spirit had been guarding something and when my spell subdued it its watchfulness wavered and allowed something to occur that had been put off for a great many years. What I had assumed was another rock lying besides the puddle turned out to be a dinosaur egg. It hatched.
The baby dinosaur looked around and immediately bonded with the only living creature in the area, myself. It could have been worse, it could have mistaken me for a tasty snack left by its parents, but I believe the creature was un-hungry due to the nourishment it was still getting from the remainder of its egg yolk, just visible between its back legs. I had to get it to food soon, however, or it would become more aggressive.
	The newly born reptile was around the size of the average dog and I required the assistance of the water spirit to get it down the cliff. The spirit had stopped trying to scare me off and now contemplated me with a rather smug look, but it did help me by air lifting both the dinosaur and myself to the beach.
The spirit then became incorporeal and wound around me like a gentle breeze before returning to its place on the cliff. By this I realised it would pose no more trouble to visitors to the beach and that that part of my job at least had been completed successfully. I signalled the boat and returned to The Lady Christine, where a meal was made for the newly hatched reptile of all the baitfish they had brought along. This satisfied the youngster and it soon went to sleep in one of the holds. I radioed the Australian authorities and they said they would get back to us on what would happen next. ***** Our next campsite was set up early so as to catch the light. We continued our trip, stopping at a mangrove and checking on six mud crab nets that the boats crew had put down earlier. No crabs were present and our Skipper was most disgruntled. We then journeyed up a river and came to a secluded freshwater waterfall. Waterguns were produced and our group played and swam there for some time. The young man from 'OverEast' climbed the rock face and jumped from the top into the pool of water in a spectacular, if somewhat foolhardy way.
On the way back up the river we passed a freshwater crocodile sunning itself on a rock. We saw two others of this ancient reptile family swimming in the river, one circling the Lady Christine with curiosity. The Skipper said he did not mind 'seeing' crocodiles, it was 'not' seeing them, when they submerged themselves in preparation for an attack, that he did not like.
The others in my party had had a day of misfortunes, which they eagerly shared with each other. The Granddaughter had performed what she referred to as 'the hop skip and jump of death' on the rocks around the waterfall. She became unbalanced while walking across the rocks and just managed to keep her balance by jumping to the next rock, where she also lost her balance and hopped to the next rock where she did the same, jumping from that one when she wobbled back onto the sandy area. She had moved in a complete circle to end up where she started and laughed heartily at her close escape. Her mother, the Eldest Daughter, also laughed, but wryly, as she told of losing her own balance and falling into the tinny. Her boyfriend caught her, but then he too lost his balance and fell to the bottom of the small craft, where they flailed about helpless with laughter. Much amused the Younger Daughter collected the platter that had held a sumptuously prepared fish and took it to be washed in the cabin. There she tripped over the wash back board set in the doorway to prevent waves entering the cabin and went flying, the remains of the fish spraying spectacularly around the room. I was most concerned that the other members of our group might injure themselves with the amount of merriment they were experiencing, but they continued to laugh for a great many more minutes with no ill effects. On my travels today I have seen - Large grey bodied spiders that my new friend Peter Parker would have loved, cave welks, cave lice, Flying fish, some black and some red dragonflies. Day 8

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