Written 21 April, 2020
Today I try to upload the new video that’s going to change my fortunes. It doesn’t upload.
While it refuses, I begin the long winters’ burning before bushfire season. A vast national park begins at the back of our will land so I must be diligent. Today I just burn off branches from fallen trees in a 44 gallon drum near the steps to our cove. And the live bait trap catches a tiny fish! But we throw it back, asking it to come back when it’s grown a little bigger. All the time, I worry that Dy doesn’t turn up, as he planned. He’d be best to come in the early morning, on a good day when the sun gives him enough power to last through the night.
And we go into Brooklyn for our Woolworths’ delivery again, in the evening, the only time they’ll deliver to the boatyard. GG drives because we mustn’t be late. He takes 45 minutes, whereas I can’t do it in less than an hour.
When we left home, it was already getting dark.
And come back as soon as the shopping is delivered with the dear DB helping us load it into the boat. He always comes out from his house nearby, or from underneath a boat he’s fixing, arriving bare-footed and arms outstretched, ready to help. Tonight he wears a torch on his forehead, so he can carry shopping for us. He brings two wheelbarrows and greets the delivery man with me. If I’d wheeled the shopping down his long jetty alone, I’m sure it would’ve landed in the mud! His waves goodbye are as generous his nature. Then we drive down through the gut amongst many moored boats, turn under the bridge, there’s rough water for a while, not too rough tonight for there’s just a slight breeze, and then home though the inky night. I lean out of the prow to watch for treacherous logs from the not-so-recent storm.
We’re not allowed headlights, but the nav lights pick up obstacles, though at the last minute. At the mouth of our bay, in the black water, suddenly I see strange pink shapes that curve in dives and bob up again, frolicking. Mermaids? Humans? If I were somewhere else, I’d think dolphins. Later I tell GG and I’m surprised that he saw shapes he couldn’t explain. The driver of the Riverboat Postman taking mail to the settlements but never as far as our bay, once told me he’d seen bullnose sharks. The lore here is that there’s no sharks this far up: the last one was seen in 1911.
” But has someone been watching?” asked an anxious visitor.
Our boat home with the shopping was an hour through inky back waters. The moon was no help at all.
