Home is Where the Wind is

From the air you can trace the arcs of reef and watch fishing boats tack between sandbars and coral spits. There are three clusters of islands that make up the Abrolhos- They’re scattered from north to south like the downward flick of an artists brush. Yellows and greys and greens on a canvas of fervent blues. The larger islands are cluttered with corrugated iron and asbestos shacks, the beaches sprout spindly wooden fingers that stretch to the deeper blue beyond the shallows.

I'm from Geraldton, a place where undulating seas of parched wheat and flocks of laconic sheep make way for sandy coastal plains- and onward to the sea. Since I can remember, we would all go down to the beach- reefwalking, beachcombing, fishing, surfing, swimming, snorkeling. In summer, we spent days at a time in the sun and salt and sand. My elder brother rose like clockwork each morning, six AM, just time for breakfast and a surf, and as the sun rose at his back, he'd paddle out to the break, to sit in line with a dozen other surfers, propped silently on their boards... Watching, waiting for the next set to amble in and break its back over the sand bank.

I finished school and decided to work for a year, to save some cash for uni and the big move to Perth. I got a job on a crayboat- hard work, big money and an amazing lifestyle. In the crisp pre-dawn when we get up to pull the pots, the world seems disconcertingly void of any colour, like looking through a frame at a black and white photograph; parallel lines of greys and blacks blurring away at the edges. As the sun creeps over the horizon, the landscape is dipped in sepia and you have to squint to make out the lines of floats on the bow. Gradually the sun breaks free from the ocean and the whole scene springs to life like a ballerina from a music box. Shags and silver gulls burst from the picture and drift lazily overhead, whitecaps tumble at the peak of each wave and sea lions, sharks and dolphins take turns weaving in and out of our wake.

I try to head back to Geraldton each summer, back to the land of wheat and sheep and sun and sand. I feel the easterly amble in each morning. I watch the boats unload at the “lives” dock and the James Bowes trucks coast in and out of town. Spend enough time on the ocean and it never lets you go. Whenever I think of home; the wind, the water, the waves, my mind unravels like a rope thrown into the sea.