Trip 1
March 26 1999

After eight days on the Quiksilver Crossing we finally caught our first waves - a small left-hander, rumoured by the local villagers to have a history of shark and crocodile encounters in the surrounding area. Stephen Slater actually caught the first wave. It was an uneventful surf filled with sea-leg rides and short, clean mushy waves. The ride out in the tin boat was beautiful though with dolphins riding the bow as our feet and arms hung down in the splash of their wake - maybe 15-20 of them. They stayed close by in the channel the whole surf. A few sharks circled near them, scavenging the scraps of bait the dolphins didn’t finish off. Such is life in the Coral Sea. Endless, perfect coral reefs and infinite surf possibilities with every awaiting pass.

There’s been no swell to speak of so there’s been an overabundance of time to reflect on the lives we left behind, the ones we encounter and the ones we soon will rejoin. I will go on record to say there is no better fishing or diving on earth. Some days we can’t keep the lines out. Almost all the reef is healthy and flourishing. Sea life has stood still here while the rest of the world has depleted itself. Giant clams are abundant. It is not uncommon to see every type of coral and underwater sea growth on every short submergence.

Endless shipwrecks scatter most barrier reefs from the Battle of the Coral Sea in World War II. One we saw had rusted framework the shape of a cross, eerily depicting the harrowing scene. To where would these sailors flee? There’s still very few signs of life on these islands, miles from nowhere. Even with a boat, the charts we have today make it difficult to circumnavigate most reefs here as the depths and calculations have been more off the mark than on. Strong currents and tricky channels would leave an unmotorised boat dazed and confused, lost amongst tiny islands and expansive reefs reaching miles in all directions. One reading on the depth meter sounded from 60 feet one second to 270 the next. There’s a good possibility of losing the boat out there.

We’ve ventured into a number of villages. Their means and ways are simple. Eat what is available, build from that which already stands here. Nails are scarce. Radios don’t seem to exist. They had collected a few shells from the beaches and had necklaces called Ebaragu which celebrated happiness but seemed to have no conventional form like jewellery we know, just some shells, a couple of beads and a few more shells on string in no particular order or shape.

One old woman of 90 or so had no teeth but smiled bright as day. Plumerias covered her shy smile and seemed to make you forget her age. She seemed like a young child, not a care in this simple, uncomplicated, never-changing world. Nothing to cloud her vision or make her sad except maybe the makeshift cemetery adjacent to her home, her open shack. She had tattoos all down her arms and she offered Jeff one. He settled for a younger lady’s Ebaragu. Behind her shack was a burnt stump amidst tall beautiful palms. A straw hat covered this stump. I took it off to put on and take a photo as a huge, brown spider shot out and chased me away, only to hide under a giant clam shell that seemed to be hundreds of years old. That got us onto conversations of how animal and insect life ever even found their way here. For instance, beautiful red and green parrots buzzed our heads numerous times this day as we walked the shore finding shells. How did they get here? How does anything get here? Even us? Maybe the fish lead us.