Shark Bait

Today's topic is a bit different, based partially on an incident that did not directly involve us, but was interesting nonetheless. Before I get to it, however, we have a picnic to discuss.

The voyage to Patonga was a great trip. We took the ferry from the Palm Beach wharf on Saturday morning after spending the night at Ronald's house. He suggested that we start early on Saturday to catch the nine o'clock ferry, but that didn't happen. The night before we stayed up perhaps later than we should have watching rugby football again (Friday nights are usually double headers, and I managed to make it through about a third of the second game.) As a result everyone slept in too late and we had to take the 11:00 launching.

Palm Beach is a rather exlusive area near the very end of the Barrenjoey penninsula and about a twenty minute drive from Ronald's house. The ferry is a small boat that takes about fifty passengers maximum, and it has to negotiate its way around a bunch of sailboats and yachts that are sprinkled in the waters offshore. Once it had cleared the boats we were chugging along approaching the open waters of the Tasman Sea, rounding a head of land that was mostly national park, entirely undeveloped and covered with lush vegetation. As we were rounding the head, you could see Sea Lion Island, a pretty big chunk of rock that is home to a penguin colony and strictly off limits to visitors.

Patonga is a little fishing village that has become a summer home area, surrounded by parkland and literally the "end of the road" for anyone traveling there by car. We met Cindy, Jane, and Jane's parents, John and Gwen, at a really nice picnic spot near one end of the beach. John and Gwen were pretty cool, and we had a nice visit before feasting on all the goodies they had brought. A stroll down the beach followed, with lots of shell gathering and examination of various deposits of "shark poo," a mysterious clear jelly substance that washes up on shore. When the ferry returned it was only three in the afternoon, but all the bright sunshine and fresh air seemed to have tired us out as much as if we had hiked for miles. We didn't do much on Sunday, but therein lies the tale of the title.

Have you ever heard a siren for an approaching tornado, or perhaps an air raid in an old movie? The sound is unlike those they use on contemporary police and fire vehicles and is a long, sustained wail. You can easily imagine how we all bolted from our chairs on Sunday afternoon when we heard such a siren screaming right across the street from our apartment. As we rushed to the balcony, we could see the huge weekend crowd on the beach looking out to sea, and everyone who was in the water at the time was making for shore in record time. In just moments the water was completely devoid of people except for the search rescue guys who went tear-assing out into the breakers in their speed boat. I had an idea of what was going on, but Jayne and I went outside to the crowd to confirm our suspicions. A shark had been cited just about 100 meters off shore, and they saftey guys were doing their best to harass the dangerous creature back out to sea. It was all over after a while, and people went back into the water eventually, but my sentiments were echoed by a little boy I overheard: "But mum, I don't want to go in....I hate sharks!"