Growing up I remember salt prickling my skin,
Azure blue water and an oven like northerly,
Pea soup green easter swells,
Surfing in howling south westerly blizzards at Merricks point,
Walking through the tangled tee tree trunks in the half dark,
Slipping on muddy paths with numb feet,
Koalas unearthly carrying on in the tree in the back yard,
Dolphins surfacing under our surfboards at Pt Leo.
The stench of rotting seaweed when the Balnarring or Somers creek mouths block up,
Threading my car through the network of lonely roads,
Acute angles and straight lines through a tunnel of trees, heading towards the prom.
Tooradin, mudflats, mangroves spikes, tinnies floating way below or banging against moorings at high tide.
Garfishing, an artificial light run off a battery in a tiny boat, forming an otherworldly luminous cone in emerald green water
Snorkelling very rarely and still seeing an eagle ray and stingrays at Merricks.
Seagrass seaweed, piled on the beach to knee height.
The smell of it, the weird lumpy mattress feeling of walking in it, throwing it at my family, my brother stuffing it down my top.
The way it sticks to you and you find it stuck to you after hours and a shower.
Snippets of a life lived with an inescapable connection to the surrounding land, and developing an understanding of the importance of each element.
Taken together these memories are a way of growing up, the connection between the weather and state of the sea, and the smell of the town you live in, familiar and precious to many Australians
What do they think millions of litres of chlorinated fresh water will do to the seagrass? What effect do they expect the death of the seagrass to have on the garfish, and stingrays, and dolphins, and flathead?
Will local grandkids still have dusty photos of seaweed moustaches and wigs in 10 years?
