Sea horse, p.1
Sea Horse, page 1
First published 2015
Magabala Books Aboriginal Corporation,
Broome, Western Australia
Website: www.magabala.com
Email: sales@magabala.com
Magabala Books receives financial assistance from the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts advisory body. The State of Western Australia has made an investment in this project through the Department of Culture and the Arts in association with Lotterywest. Magabala Books would like to acknowledge the generous support of the Shire of Broome, Western Australia.
Copyright © Text Bruce Pascoe 2015
Copyright © Images Lyn Harwood 2015
The author asserts his moral rights.
The photographer asserts her moral rights.
All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this publication may be reproduced by any process whatsoever without the written permission of the publisher.
Designed by Tracey Gibbs
Printed and bound in Australia by
Griffin Press, South Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data available from the National Library of Australia
for Jack & the sea
1
Seahorse Bay is protected from the open sea by a protective reef and skirted by a crescent of golden sand. Like a photo from a travel brochure. They could always catch crayfish and abalone and most times snapper, sweep and whiting down at the bay.
There was plenty of driftwood and they’d light a fire in the lee of some big rocks, put on the big pot to boil the crays and the hotplate to barbeque the abalone and fish. They lived like castaways.
It wasn’t far from home and Jack and his family camped there whenever they could. They set up their tent on the beach and usually had the place to themselves for days. No one else could be bothered carting all their gear down the steep sandy path from the clifftop. But Jack’s dad, Vince, wasn’t no one. He saw any difficulty as a challenge. Setting up the camp in this lonely idyllic spot was his idea of the perfect holiday. And the rest of the family agreed.
There was a channel in the reef and, because he had scuba tanks, Vince swam through it to the ocean side of the reef, while Jack and, for the first time this holiday, his little sister, Tanya, snorkelled in the channel to find abalone and turban shells. Turban shells are a type of sea snail — a bit chewy for Jack’s taste but Vince loved them.
Jack’s mother, Carla, wasn’t keen on the water. She covered herself in sunscreen, put on her big hat, sat on the high rocks and went fishing. They tried to get her to swim with them but she always said no. She liked the peace and quiet of being on her own for an hour and who wanted to get cold and wet when you could sit in the sun and be warm and dry?
Jack often used to wish he had a mate to go snorkelling with while his dad was scuba diving, but all last summer Tanya had swum lengths in the town’s pool to prove to her mum and dad that she was ready to snorkel. Then she nagged Jack until he taught her how. If you couldn’t have one of your mates to snorkel with, the next best thing was a sister with as much go as Tanya. At first she just paddled around in the water learning to breathe through the snorkel.
Jack had taught her to do it properly and this time she was going to collect abalone with him out in the channel.
The channel is deep and dark. Scary. It is a huge cleft in the reef leading out into the open sea. Water rushes in and out with each tide and wobbegong sharks and rays lie on patches of sand at the bottom. It is nine metres deep so sharks look smaller at that distance but any shark is still a shark no matter how far away it is.
It’s also a magical place. The rock walls are lined with long narrow caves where abalone, crayfish and pufferfish lurk. When you dive down to a cave you can look in and see the crayfish waving their feelers and testing the water for any fragment of food that comes within their reach.
Sometimes there is an old rock cod, mottled cream and brown, like an old carpet, hiding in a dark cave corner, waiting for who knows what.
Seaweeds and soft corals — rich pink, red, orange and green — hang from the channel walls and sweep back and forth with the movement of waves. Giant ribbons of kelp stream out like long flags with every wave and then go limp before rising up in the stream of water as the wave recedes. The ribbons are as wide as a man’s hand and slip around your body as the water streams past. Jack still finds it a creepy feeling to have the kelp curling around his body. Everything in the channel is big and close.
Today was the day of Tanya’s first venture into the channel. Vince, Jack and Tanya were in the shallow water and Vince made sure Tanya had her wetsuit on properly and her mask fitted snugly. Then he started on one of his lectures. He had a lecture for just about everything. For crossing the road, bushwalking, talking to strangers, snakes on the track, riding bikes at night and even drinking out of Coke cans left in the sun. (Wasps get in them apparently, although Jack had never seen one.) Jack sat on a rock beside his sister and prepared himself for the regular sea-safety lecture.
‘When you’re in the channel, stay close to the edge and if there’s a strong tow, grab on to some kelp and wait for the next wave to start moving water back into the bay. I’ll swim with you for a while before I go outside the reef. Remember what Jack taught you, Tanya. Breathe slowly in the snorkel and if something goes wrong, don’t panic. Swim to some rocks and hang on to the seaweed. Jack will look after you.’
Jack wondered if he’d be as good in a crisis as his father expected him to be. He was only twelve. He’d been swimming since he was four and his father had taught him all the strokes, the floating technique, how to tread water and how to catch a wave back to shore, so he thought he’d be alright.
Tanya looked so little in her bright red wetsuit but she was a goer. She insisted that now she was eight and a strong swimmer, she wasn’t going to be left behind. They decided she would carry the diving bag while Jack levered abalone off the rocks with his diving knife. Vince had cut a mark into the steel to show the legal size of an abalone. It was illegal to take small ones and they were only allowed to get five each. Four or five was heaps for a good feed anyway, especially as Carla hardly ever came home without fish, and even if Vince missed out on a cray, one way or another they never went hungry at Seahorse Bay.
The three of them were swimming away from the shallows when Jack paused to clean the glass of his mask and noticed a bright object in the water. He dived down to pick it up and surfaced holding it up to show his dad.
‘That’s a deck cleat off a boat. Stainless steel. Still got a screw stuck in it. Must have been ripped off in a storm or something. Handy little thing. I’ll stick it in my diving bag. Come on, let’s get out to the reef while the tide’s still out. It’ll make it easier for Tanya to dive down to the abs.’
Inside the bay it was mostly sandy on the bottom, wrinkled like the roof of your mouth, and every now and then whiting darted like arrows in the swathes of seagrass. They were streamlined chrome-coloured fish that whisked away in a flight pattern like fighter planes. Kelp grew from the bottom and reached up to the surface like a forest of thin straggly trees. Underneath the light was dim and tan like strong tea. Out on the reef it was like a very wild garden. There were areas of tumbled rock, thousands of different seaweeds and hundreds of different fish, molluscs, starfish, anemones and even the odd octopus and stingray.
The first time Jack saw a stingray he thought he was going to mess his wetsuit. Not a nice thought to contemplate. His father had been pointing to something on the bottom but Jack hadn’t seen anything until this great shape reared up out of the sand, its wings flapping slowly like a sea vampire and the dark knobs above its eyes making them look huge. Jack swam on to Vince’s back and wasn’t letting go for anything.
Much the same happened when he saw his first octopus. He was looking into small caves for crayfish when he saw these two great bulging eyes and these creepy tentacles — the thing started sidling out of the cave with the weirdest walk you’ve ever seen. I suppose if you’ve got eight, skinny, sucky legs it would be impossible not to walk like that. But when he saw it for the first time it gave him the creeps. Of course, Vince had a lecture about it that included the fact that stingrays and octopuses were just like snakes: they want to get away from you more than you do them. If you back off and leave them alone, they will leave you alone. All you have to do is not panic and just get out of their way. Alright when you’re one hundred and ninety centimetres tall thought Jack, not so good when the stingray was twice as big as you.
Vince was pointing at something on the bottom. Tanya went to dive down to have a look but Jack pulled her back. She’s got no fear, Jack thought, not even any respectable caution.
Jack looked and expected to see a ray or an octopus, or even a shark (which Vince would insist was only trying to get away) but, with relief, he saw it was an anchor hooked into some rocks with a great length of rope attached.
Vince found the end of the rope and examined it carefully. He pulled himself up on the reef and signalled to Jack and Tanya to join him.
‘This is a bit strange. Looks like a boat came in through the channel and anchored inside the bay. Keep a look out for any bits and pieces like that deck cleat you found before. Remember the rules, Tanya. I’m going to have a look for crays outside the reef.’ Vince pointed at Jack. ‘Look after her, son, she’s only eight.’
And I’m only twelve, thought Jack. Who looks out for me?
2
Once attached, the abalone were hard to shift but Jack’s diving knife had a strong stainless-steel blade that he could slide in between the reef and the abalone. He levered off three, then gave the knife to Tanya to have a go.
He nearly laughed into his snorkel watching her wrestling with the knife, the abalone and the curling seaweed while struggling to stay below the surface. But she wouldn’t give in. Finally she shot to the surface tearing the mask from her face, gasping for air.
‘I couldn’t breathe. I got water in my snorkel.’
‘You were down too long. You’ve got to practise holding your breath so you can stay down a bit longer each time. Remember what I taught you? When you get back to the surface, breathe hard into the snorkel and all the water shoots out the top. But don’t take your mask off,’ he lectured. Jack knew he was sounding like his father. ‘If you take your mask off, it’s too hard to put it back on while you’re treading water. Where’s the knife?’
Tanya looked at her empty hands. The knife wasn’t there. She tried to peer down into the water to where she’d had it last.
‘Put your mask back on and hang on to the kelp. I’ll go and get it.’
Alright for Jack to say hang on to the kelp. It was cold and slippery and felt like eels. But she held on and watched as Jack skilfully dived down to the rocks. The knife was stuck between an abalone and the reef and he levered it away and brought the knife and the abalone to the surface.
Jack gave the abalone to Tanya, then put his face below the water again. He had seen something big down there. He didn’t like seeing something big in the water, especially when he was in the water as well. ‘Ah, that’s probably enough abalone, I reckon. Let’s go back and see what Mum’s caught.’
‘What about waiting for Dad to see what he’s caught?’
She sure was a goer this kid. Even a belly full of water wasn’t going to stop her.
‘He mightn’t be back for a long time yet. We’ll go back and start the fire and get everything ready.’
Reluctantly Tanya pulled her mask on and followed him down the channel, across the seagrass meadows and over the ribbed sand to the beach.
Carla had started the fire already and Jack and Tanya walked out of the cold water and sprawled in the sun-warmed sand and roasted their sides by the flames.
‘You kids got cold. It was lovely on the rock,’ Carla said, ‘beautiful and warm, dry, plenty of fish ... ’
‘Cut it out, Mum,’ said Jack. ‘Who’d want to sit on a rock when you can swim in the water and see the fish and kelp forests ... and anyway I think we found a shipwreck.’
‘We did not. We just found an old anchor,’ Tanya challenged. She was feeling famous now for having dived on the reef.
‘No.’ Jack had been thinking about the big thing he had seen in the water. It was becoming clearer the more he thought. ‘I think I saw a boat under the water. Near where you lost the knife.’
‘I never did lose it. It just got stuck.’
‘And you just left it.’
‘I was drowning,’ Tanya shrieked.
Jack gave his sister a warning look, as their mother looked around.
‘Well I got water in me snorkel and it took a while to get it out. I knew where the knife was all the time.’
‘Anyway, I think I might have seen the boat. It was just a big white thing down in a gutter in the reef. When Dad comes back I’ll show him where it is.’
When Vince got back all everyone could think about was food and an icy cold drink from the car fridge.
The pot was boiling away on the fire and Vince plopped two good-sized crays into the boiling water. ‘One for now and one for Ron. Later on!’ he joked.
Jack cleaned the abalone and beat them to soften the tissues and Carla sliced them fine with a sharp knife and tossed the slivers into a frying pan.
Jack could smell the garlic and lemon juice and he picked pieces straight out of the pan with his fingers. Delicious.
‘Steady on,’ said Carla. ‘What about everyone else?’
‘But they’re cooked already,’ said Jack, licking the oil and garlic off his fingers. Jack left the turban shells but Vince scoffed into them.
‘It doesn’t get much better than this,’ said Vince, as he lay back on the sand.
‘Well don’t go to sleep before you’ve cleaned these crays,’ ordered Carla.
‘And I want another swim later on. Dad, I think I saw a boat.’
Vince opened an eye. ‘What boat?
Where?’
‘Out near the channel. I’m sure it’s a boat.’
‘We’d better go and have a look later. Might be a good time for you to practise that buddy breathing from my mouthpiece — see if you can do it in deep water.’
Sounded alright to Jack, he’d been dying to have a go with the tank. He’d see so much more underwater if he didn’t have to keep going back to the top for air.
Vince got up and cleaned the crays and Carla made pink sauce to dip the chunks in. Once you got used to the sharp taste it was just the right thing. Jack couldn’t imagine any better food to eat.
After lunch Vince snoozed in the sun and Carla lay down beside him.
‘I’m glad you mob like camping here,’ Vince said softly.
‘You told us your dad brought you here when you were a baby,’ Tanya said, trying to encourage her father to launch into a family story.
‘And when I was older too. Taught me to swim right here.’ Vince was quiet for a while and then began again, with a soft voice.
‘Hardly ever spoke, my father, real quiet man, kind but very … I don’t know, sort of sad. Never knew his own mum, she died when he was a baby and he had to grow up in a Home. He never spoke to us about it but Uncle Wal said they knocked the children around something terrible. Which is why you kids are lucky to have such a brilliant father.’
Tanya knew if he started telling jokes the story would soon be over and she didn’t want it to be.
‘Why did they put him in the Home?’ she asked.
‘It’s just what they did back then to Aboriginal kids … lots of other kids too. Yeah, never said one word about the Home but when he brought us down here he’d show us how to build a fire, how to start it with a little ball of bark. He’d put the bark on a bit of old wood and then he’d spin a little wooden rod through it and onto the wood. Soon enough, whoosh, smoke, and he’d blow onto the bark. Then fire. It was magic.’
‘Didn’t he have matches?’ Jack asked and Tanya glared at him.
Vince chuckled and went on, ‘Oh yes, we always had matches but Dad liked to do everything blackfella way down here. Start the fire, cook the fish in the coals, spuds same way. He was proud of the old ways, wanted to keep them alive. Why he showed us I suppose.’
‘Can you teach me how to light a fire like that?’ Jack asked.
‘Of course. I’ll show you and Tanya, next time we come,’ Vince promised.
The family fell silent staring into the fire. Vince drew Carla closer to him and soon they were asleep.
Jack knew he wouldn’t get any sense out of them for an hour or more. Tanya got up and began poking around in rock pools so Jack wandered off along the beach to the headland where he could sometimes see albatross and peregrine falcons.
It was a wild and exciting coast. The sea smashed against the shore, driven by southwesterly winds that began as storms in South Africa and blew over no other land until they hit the southern cape of Australia. You could almost smell that lonely ocean in the keening of the wind.
In the age of sail, many ships were driven onto the coast in violent gales. There was an anchor from the shipwreck of Eric the Red cemented onto a rock and in the shallow bay just west of the headland, Jack could see a bit of the hull buried in the sand. He couldn’t help wondering what those days were like.
The big sailing ships travelling blind around the coast, hoping to find Port Phillip Bay but hitting uncharted reefs and sinking on the shores of Bass Strait, the roughest stretch of water in the world. What must it have been like to wake up wet and cold with your ship breaking up around you and then having to swim through the surf in the dark, hoping you wouldn’t be smashed to bits against the rocks? Even if you did make it to shore, you’d be hoping like hell that there’d be a way of getting up the cliffs.
