The Ocean's Call

I don’t remember when I changed from a water baby into a scaredy cat landlubber. Maybe it had to do with the move to a foreign territory or was it the wave that turned me upside down as if to say escape from my clutches is impossible. Whatever happened it left me scared of the infinite power of the water and a lover of wintertime when the beaches closed. Despite my avowed winter lover pronouncements, I remained drawn to the ocean, to her power, her mystery and her magic. Intimidated yet jealous of the surfers with their toned wet suited bodies and boards under the arm, living each day with seemingly no other cares than the waves. I would sit on the edge of the beach and watch them – longing to be a part of their world but so very frightened of what that would entail.

Years passed, I gained a life of responsibilities but still the ocean called me. I could hear her in the rhythmic lilt of a saxophone on the radio; like waves coming to the shore and flowing back to their friends. I surrounded myself with blue in all shades and seeped myself in its calm, however Neptune’s domain remained an alien place of fear to me. I longed to be a cool surfer but remained the scaredy cat landlubber. On one of those early spring Queensland days, the type when anything seems possible, a colleague mentioned that she was taking up swimming lessons; I pondered upon this and thought could I, dare I? The decision was taken away from me – my colleague gave my email to her coach and that was that.

Through the long summer I worked on my swimming, one, two, three, breathe; one, two, three, breathe became my mantra and I emerged from the chrysalis of the landlubber into a mermaid. It has been said that the salt percentage in the human body is the same as the sea and that when we enter the sea we return home, in the ocean’s tender embrace I felt alive, loved and a part of something bigger and prehistoric. Over that summer I found that my soul refreshed every time I took to the water and my anxious demons were left in the warm viscosity of the local bay. It wasn’t just the swimming; the comradeship, the shared experience, the bonding over coffee (still looking at the water) gave me new friendships, exposed me to new experiences and refreshed my soul. It was during one of the post swim coffees when someone suggested we take off for a week in Sydney to explore the historic pools. Although the anxious demons urged me to keep silent, for once I ignored them and signed up. After all I’d been to Sydney in the winter before and it wasn’t that different weather wise to Brisbane town, I’d be fine. The demons tried their best to make me change my mind, forcing a car accident on me where I hurt my shoulder and could only kick in the water for months. I stayed strong against the demons and continued swimming as the seasons moved on and we moved from togs to rashies to wetsuits.

We left a beautifully sunny day and flew into overcast windy miserableness. I instantly regretted not bringing a warm jacket to wear and the anxious demons yelled “we told you so”. We based ourselves in the natural beauty of the eastern suburbs with her sandstone cliffs that have been shaped over millennia and the natural and man made pools full of the light cold aqua beauty. I did not swim that first day and the second dawned brighter but still cool; my friends took to the bay swimming our usual kilometre in open water without a care in the world or a wetsuit to warm them. I took one look and decided to explore the coastal walk, leaving them to their cold salty meditation. Our swim group fell quickly into a routine: up for a swim, or a walk in my case, then back to our small hotel to take over the plant strewn outdoor dining area, eat breakfast and plan our day. My anxious demons used my sore shoulder as an excuse not to swim; the reality was that the bitter cold water in a Sydney winter was so far removed from my normal sub-tropical oases that I lost my confidence and reverted to the scaredy cat landlubber, watching from the sidelines and wishing I was a part of the magical world of the sea dwellers. That night in bed I lectured myself and exorcised the demons in my head. On our final full day we had planned to make our way by foot from our base in the southern end of the Eastern Suburbs to the most hallowed of all Australian beaches – Bondi.

Another day dawned, grey and miserable but still we packed our togs and borrowing umbrellas from the hotel we set off, past the bronze of the soldier and the lifesaver, comrades in arms forevermore. Up the cliffside we strolled, stopping to imagine the days of the jetty and the Coogee baths, pausing silently to remember the lost at the Bali Bombing memorial. On and on we strolled, stopping at Gordon’s Bay, where a young man pulled a dinghy up onto the cliff walls, to join the others that seemed to be looking forlornly at the ocean. The grey day did not abate, but we managed to make it to Clovelly with her concrete pool and strip of beach before the rain got too much. The Roosters banners along the strip were limp in the air, a little like the club’s finals hopes that year. Over a warming coffee we spoke about our plans for the day and as the tech nerd in the group, I checked the weather app. It suggested that we would be able to finish our walk and as the rain eased we put up our umbrellas and strolled on; out to the cliffs by Clovelly Bowling Club where we could view the full majesty of the Pacific.

We moved away from the cliffs and entered a grey and misty Waverley Cemetery with its 19th Century graves complete with exquisite epitaphs, “until the day break and the shadows flee away”. As keen swimmers, we were all desperate to make it to the home of freestyle swimming in Australia and we walked up and down giant hills to reach one of our nirvanas - Bronte Ocean Baths. Like the shadows on the grave at Waverley Cemetery, the miserable weather was starting to flee and over lunch we spoke to some American tourists who were looking for Cloverlee having started out from Bondy. The merest hint of sunshine started to glow as we helped out with directions and pronunciation. We had hoped to swim at the birthplace of freestyle but it was not to be, due to the miserable weather of the week, the pool was closed for cleaning. After chatting with the lifeguards about the dangers of Bronte Beach we headed on, stopping briefly at the rounded lifesaver tower watching over the surf breaks at Tamarama, mostly to get our breath back after the hills and stairs.

As the grey day cleared and the sun grew stronger in the sky we ascended our final set of stairs; from the clifftop, Icebergs Pool and that beach stretched before us. The white waves splashed over the pool walls and rippled through the lanes; in heavy surf, swimming too close to the edge of the pool could mean that we would be swept away, into the depths of the rips at the southern end of Bondi, taken by the surf to meet our maker or say hello to New Zealand.

Gingerly I entered the water, my toes then knees; staying perfectly still while my lower legs adjusted to the cool water. Once feeling had left my legs then I went to waist deep, repeating the Zen like trance, then chest deep, splashing my arms to get them used to this foreign water, so far removed from my sub-tropical home. The freestyle I had painstakingly mastered in the pool in Queensland was not for this environment. I started to swim, breaststroke, desperately trying to find a reason not to put my face in the water and turn it the same colour as the sea. After a couple of laps, my body adjusted and I plunged into freestyle, traversing up and down the lane thinking I was gliding like a superfish, but in reality looking like a dugong.

As I swam I found my soul replenishing, my muscles warming and the weak sun that touched my back felt like a boiling core of lava from a hot Queensland summer and I realised that no matter where I was or how cold it was, if I was swimming, I held the key to an invincible summer within me.