Wayfarers All

Boats in Yamba marina

“There is nothing …half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” ~ The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.

Movement, any movement no matter how big or little, can shift your energy and create a sense of adventure. I drove home last night feeling like I wanted to keep driving, to go on a short adventure as my spirit feels too restless to settle.

I know that in a few weeks I will be on a huge adventure travelling to the United Kingdom, but that only seems to exacerbate my feeling of restlessness now. I need to be doing something other than cleaning, clearing and packing. I felt the pull of movement deep within, the urgings of Sea Rat from Kenneth Graham’s iconic book The Wind in the Willows.

“Take the Adventure, heed the call, now ere the irrevocable moment passes!” said Sea Rat to Water Rat .

I took heed, packed an overnight bag, grabbed my husband and we went to Yamba.

It’s a relatively short trip since the freeway has been put through south from Ballina. It’s less than two hours, an easy drive in the last rays of an evening summer night. These kind of spontaneous journeys are always about water, boats and being near the sea.

Walking the coastal path around to the lighthouse before breakfast, sitting out on the marina with a morning coffee, watching the lap of the water on the pier struts; there’s really nothing like it. Other than sailing or being on a ferry.

It must be because I grew up in Melbourne bayside, captivated by the little fishing jetty and working boats that used to go out each day. Now when I go somewhere, I’m always on the look out for fishing boats, even though I know that fishing nowadays is not a sustainable practice and over fishing has wiped out so many communities that once lived harbourside.

When I took this picture of the boats in the Yamba marina, I noticed most of them are yachts, pleasure cruisers and boats for hire. But there is still a strong fishing ethos in this now busy tourist town. The Fisherman’s Co-op is still alive, there is a sense of purpose in plying the waters. There is movement and comings and goings of people, tides and vessels.

I think too of the first pictures I took when arriving at my artist residency in Skagaströnd, Iceland in 2019. A harbour full of boats, Dylan Thomas’s “fishingboat bobbing sea”. Or resting my knee in Ulcinj, Macedonia in 2018 and watching the small boats heading out from the safe harbour every morning. Boats, movement and travel; wayfarers all.

Fishing boats in Skagaströnd, Iceland

Boats in Ulcinj harbour, Macedonia