The Lure of the Wild Sea
he pitch black of silent night faded to steel grey and all around the
soft hum of the work animals filled the misty morning air. Gritty sleep
filled my puffy, half-closed eyes. Such an early rise was foreign to me
but to he people I had come to view, it was customary.
Filling my lungs with their salty air, I gathered my outlandish equipment, all pieces having been recommended by the Patron Saint of these people: Rex Hunt. This equipment, consisting basically of long flexible sticks that the people called fishing rods, eskies full of ice (strangely absent of beer), and dead fish to catch the live ones, was more foreign to me than the early awakening. After all, why bother going to so much trouble to catch these odorous creatures if you already have them sitting dead in front of you? Why not buy the slimy critters from a local, civilised supermarket, complete with all modern amenities? What is it that entices so many people to rise before the sun to brave the wild, unpredictable seas? These were the things I had an insatiable need to discover.
We slipped into the metallic work beast that the people, commonly called fisherman, dubbed a "boat" and with a flick of a switch, gave it its command to move off. I bid farewell to the safety and familiarity of the rock solid land with an underlying feeling of anxiety.
We rode through winding canals to our destination, avoiding possibly damaging bars of sand that formed barriers between us and the open, blue sea. The rolling of the boat, rather than lull me, paled my ruddy complexion and caused a bilious lump to form at the top of my throat. The question of what draws people to this kind of living had certainly not yet been answered.
With the boat-beast now anchored, the strangely dressed fishermen began their daily routine: pretending time and time again to throw their long sticks out into the surprisingly waveless sea. As they did this, a clear, strong and seemingly endless piece of wire whirred and whipped about.
To the novice dry lander, casting, as it was called, can at first be amusing. With cries of "Did you see how far that one went" and "How was that?", I cast, waited for a minute or so, reeled in and cast again. My shouts of joy, mind you, were never answered with more than an absent minded "Yep". It was then that I began to realise that fishing, as my father had once explained to me, was not just a case of dropping the rusty, barbed hook into the water and instantly reeling it in to see if you "had one". To my surprise, it actually required an immense amount of skill and concentration. All at once, my questions had begun to be answered.
Patience: it is something that I have a minuscule amount of and, unfortunately, fishing requires and abundance of it. Fed up with waiting for the fish to become hungry, I turned my gaze to the alien surroundings.
The sky had turned from dull, lifeless grey into a myriad of pastels and under it bobbed a multitude of tiny boat-beasts. Pale blues surrounded clouds of baby pink which in turn were highlighted by a yellow like that of straw. The sky cast its hue into the water in which white, cotton wool clouds shimmered. The land, so familiar, was indistinguishable; a mere blur on the horizon. I had the strange sensation of being locked in one of those snow dome ornaments that you always see frequenting the souvenir shops.
Silence. No busy, bustling, smog filled freeways could be seen, no sound bar the diving gulls searching for their breakfast, the whistle of the cast line and the soothing sound of water lapping against the tin boat. It was almost deafening.
As the pastel sky turned burnished blue and the searing sun rose to take its throne high in the domed sky, I began to feel like an egg frying in a tin pan. As the temperature rose, my luck and patience diminished. Cynicism set in, especially when the fishermens' eagerness to catch the perfect fish overruled their compassion for a novice such as I and our expedition was extended a further four, labourious hours. What was the aim of this exercise? I placed the "bait" on my hook, only to have some slithery, glass eyed creature steal it from right under my nose. It seemed that fast food was the order of the day! Finally my patience was totally exhausted.
My questions of why, what, when where had only partially been answered but I no longer had the craving to find these answers. With the irresistible urge to share my already digested breakfast with the fish, I laid my head down on the shining boat-beast and closed my eyes.
I certainly did not wholly comprehend why so many people, dressed in their hook covered, commando like gear, enjoyed fishing as much as they obviously did. What is more, these people for the most were seemingly normal, land dwelling people living quite within reach of a supermarket!
Perhaps it is the skill level involved that draws them in or solely the feeling of control over one's temper. One thing that I am sure of is that it has something to do with that eerie silence and the feeling of being at one with nature. Perhaps it is that feeling of being sandwiched between two great entities: the sea and the sky or that of being enclosed, along with everything else in the world, in a giant souvenir snow dome. Even with all of these strange and unique attractions, I think I'll buy my fish at the solid, air conditioned, modern environment if my beloved supermarket!
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