For you mate

A friend sent me something the other day. It was one of those well-meaning Facebook memes designed to comfort, encourage, and put a smile on people’s faces.

Why he sent it to me is perhaps a story for another time, so I won’t go into it now. But the message came with three simple words that meant so much more to me than what was in the meme: ‘For you mate’.

Where does this love of the sea come from?

Blueys Beach, NSW ©Matthew Smeal

…even then,

A child, I held unconscious intercourse

With the eternal beauty, drinking in

A pure organic pleasure from the lines

Of working mist, or from the level plain

Of waters covered by the steady clouds.

William Wordsworth
‘Images of a Mighty Mind’

Where does this love of the sea come from? It has been there since I was a boy, I know that for certain.

I remember fondly the time spent on my father’s boat—most weekends and holidays—my feet dangling from the bowsprit catching spray in my toes as my eyes remained fixed on the bow wave being pushed ahead of the hull. It was my happy place. I loved to stare at the water below until my father, having spotted me, or allowing me there for as long as he could bear, would call me back concerned that in my daydream I would slip and go straight through the twin screws propelling us forward.

So, I would retreat to the stern and sit on the marlin platform to watch the wake—the beautiful and perfectly formed peeling waves—and dream of surfing them for miles at a time. But Dad always said no when I asked if I could try, and he would soon call me back when he found I had simply replaced hanging off the bow with hanging off the stern. He never said anything, but I think he was secretly pleased that at least one of his three sons had an obvious love of the sea. It was where he seemed most happy.

Those nights on board—falling asleep to the sound of water lapping against the hull only inches from my slumbering ears, and the smell of salt and oxygen rich air filling my senses and my formative years—were joined by the days. While the adults on board would peel prawns and drink Blue Nun, I would swim, diving from the fly bridge to emulate the sea eagles circling above; swimming to empty beaches imagining I was a shipwrecked sailor or a pirate digging for treasure; I’d be fishing from a quiet rock or rowing off in the dinghy to explore the next cove and to be alone.

I am often surprised, and somewhat disappointed, that my life didn’t involve the sea more. Surfing, swimming, and lifesaving have become my coastal pursuits – and photographing – and perhaps that is enough. I did own a small sailboat once; and I did write and photograph for several sailing and boating magazines for a time; and I have worked in a ship chandlery on occasion to bolster the finances during lean freelance years – but when I consider the ocean and the pull it has on me, I am surprised that my career is not on the sea, or that I didn’t scrimp and save my way into a tired old yacht and embrace a sea vagabond life.

But I am in the ocean most days. I live in a beachside suburb, and I have my childhood memories of running around marinas and clambering over rocks and sand and swimming in little bays looking for crabs and catching yellowtail. The cries of a seagull and the slap of a halyard against a mast are my music; wooden jetty planks and coarse wet sand are my shoes; the smell of diesel and two-stroke afloat on a salt air breeze are my cologne. These will take me back to that boy in a boat in a bay, to the time at dawn watching the mist roll off the crystal surface, like the blanket I would have drawn from my tired body only moments before so I could sneak onto the deck and be in the morning.

How I loved that stillness and the creeping morning light. How I loved the quietness, broken only by the gentle splash of a jumping mullet or a diving tern hunting an early breakfast. It was my time of peace and solitude; a time to watch the bay awaken to a new day, to listen to the rustle of animals in the surrounding bush and try to spot them among the steep sides of a ravine that would reach for the sky.