Dylan's Back

Today's post is for the battlers of northern Queensland who are currently enduring the fury of Cyclone Dylan. Cue the 1965 song "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" by one Robert Zimmerman (aka Dylan). Edited lyrics below.

"You must leave now, take what you need, 

you think will last
But whatever you wish to keep, 

you better grab it fast"

"This sky, too, is folding under you

And it's all over now, Baby Blue."

"All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home

Your empty handed armies, are all going home

Your lover who just walked out the door

Has taken all his blankets from the floor

The carpet, too, is moving under you

And it's all over now, Baby Blue."

Waiting for Dylan

Remembering Megan

"What's so incredibly amusing with photography

is that while seemingly an art of the surface, 

it catches things I haven't even noticed."

Jacques Henri Latrigue

Today's post is dedicated to my wonderful niece, Megan. That's her above, snapped last century, when things were more carefree.. While I wander around Byron looking for waves today, she'll be doing what she did yesterday and the day before - caring for her terminally ill husband. 

Life makes no sense, sometimes.

Backhand

Monochrome Monday

If the shoe fits

From Batman to Gathman

The other day I watched my nephew introducing his son to bodysurfing. 

The way the little fella was clinging to his dad's shoulders as they soared towards the shore whooping and laughing took me back to Kirra last century and my own dad teaching me about the ocean's pulses and rhythms and dangers - the same ocean where land and time and responsibility and mortgage payments and deadlines end, an an endless playground oblivious and disinterested in our macho machinations and digital dreamings. 

Where analogue starts.

Where generations and memories blur.

Where the Stoke is maintained.

Later, while we all talked story, the little fella and his little brother exchanged surf clobber for Action Hero outfits, oblivious to time, the heat and the rest of us smiling on. 

One day you're rocking the Batman mask and before you can say "Holy drop in, Batman" you're rocking the Gath helmet in full water person style and a couple of decades have evaporated.

Monochrome Monday (lite)

Same same

Bottom turn.
Same move.
Same town.
Same same?

Nelson

Song for Dora

Harrison Roach x First Point

Word on the coconut telegraph is that The Who (or what's left of them) might be coming to our barren island this year.

It's part of what they are calling, the Last Tour Ever.

They'll keep making albums, but the logistics and physical toll of touring are now too much for a bunch of old geezers from Shepherd's Bush, London.

I for one, will be trying to get tix.

"I can go anyway, way I choose

I can live anyhow, win or lose

I can go anywhere, for something new

Anyway, anyhow, anywhere I choose"

"Nothing gets in my way

Not even locked doors

Don't follow the lines

That been laid before

I get along anyway I dare

Anyway, anyhow, anywhere"

from Anyway Anyhow Anywhere by The Who

Sunday Drive

Monochrome Monday (King Tide)

Save Kirra

Please sign the online petition
to the Premier of Queensland
(the elected leader in charge)
to stop
this ecological insanity - click here.

Midday at the Oasis

The Day started out innocently enough. I was dusty and sleep deprived from a BIG night. 

The dawn check revealed a nice new swell had arrived with the faintest of offshore breezes. 

A quick text or three to the tribe, followed by strong coffee and I'm on it, floating around the rock shelves of The Point on the multi-coloured Seasurf Seahorse log below. It was not the right board for that day, but the only other one I had on me was the red 6 foot quad. Ohh how I would discover the folly of bad equipment choice.

It was one of those rare swells where the wind hung offshore most of the day and there were plenty of waves to go around. Everybody was buzzing that the next day was going to be even bigger. So I stayed out way longer than I should have like an addict getting way too much of a good thing. Telling myself that I would shoot instead of surfing the next day when The Swell would peak.

Even when I was exhausted beyond what my body thought possible, I stayed out, telling it that we would rest the next day. Just a few more. Too much fun is never enough.

Unless you have a bad wipeout.

Like a really really bad wipeout, where you are flung in front of a 6 foot wall of whitewater and as you hit the surface on the way down, in a most inelegant manner, the air is punched out of your lungs and The Rogue Set cartwheels you dismissively across the big rock shelf like a baby seal being tossed around by a killer whale.

And that's what happened.

But that's the easy part.

When that stopped I could not get to the surface because I was wrapped in four foot of boiling foam and instead of swimming to the surface, I'm clawing at foam that has insufficient density to get me to the top. I can't touch the bottom to launch myself upwards.

And I start to think I may not make it. And instead of looking back on my life and all that, all I can think in disbelief and shock is "this can't be happening".

Somehow that extra blubber I'm carrying finally earns it's keep and I slowly rise to the sweetest sensation on earth.
Fresh air.

To whomever was watching over me on Tuesday December 3, 2013 thank you.