I sat down on a bench by the side of the beach and looked out across the water. The night was deep and dark and black, with a sprinkling of stars overhead. In front of me the water of the sea was moving to and fro quietly, to the tune of the moon and the tide. Behind me everything was quiet; suspiciously so. The world seemed, while asleep as usual, just a bit more inactive than normal. Was it due to the pandemic that was ravaging the world? On the way overhere the roads had been completely deserted, a real joy to drive down: night giving way before headlights, closing in again behind. Stars overhead, looking down, icecold and disinterested.
A couple of nights ago we had sat here in this same spot, three of us, partners in crime, and had stared out into the night. We had spotted a multitude of satellites revolving around us; at one point there were four of them, all of them appearing in the same part of the sky, all of them spaced the same distance apart from each other. They travelled from left to right in the sky in front of us, then, just before they disappeared around a corner of the square universe, another two appeared from the exact same spot, the exact same distance spaced apart. It was intriguing. Who was watching us? The Yanks, the Russians, the Chinese? Our own government? It raised questions of exactly to what extent we are under surveillance, here on Earth, by whom, and for what purpose. Mind control and world domination spring to mind.
For a long time I sat there by myself, growing increasingly puzzled at the absence of other members of the crew, who had indicated their intentions of being here. Eventually I stopped thinking about it, and gave in to the beauty, peace and quiet of the night, of those couple of hours when all creatures traipse around as if on eggshells, holding their breath. I have had a long and intense relationship with the pre-dawn time. I used to sneak through the high, brown speargrass of the dry season in the dark verging on twilight, stalking the pretty-faced wallaby for my breakfast, along and around the banks of the muddy river. Staying well away from the water's edge, where old man crocodile was waiting to stalk me in turn, for his breakfast. Everything eats something. Other times I used to run barefoot through the red dirt, trees dim shapes by my sides, in exactly the right amount of twilight that would allow me to see the snakes curled up in the dust in front of me before I stepped on them; a sure-fire way to ruin a perfectly good day. When the tide dictated it, we cast off our moorings from the quayside in the dark before the dawn, to ride the high tide out through the bar to go and chase and catch fish for a living, the diesel engine chugging away steadily and reliably into the night, the smell of diesel mixing with the scent of the tide, oysters on the rocks, wet sand on the shore. There is deep peace and contentment in the Dark Dawn.
These days instead of hunting animals and fish I hunt waves. I am fascinated and spell-bound by their ephemeral nature, creatures of light and air and water, that cannot be held in the palm of a hand, cannot be tied down, cannot be shot, skinned or butchered, and provide endless and unlimited enjoyment when caught at the right moment, and exasperation and frustration when not. While they don't feed the physical stomach, they feed the human hunger for joy, pleasure and happiness. There is, on the whole, less violence and blood involved, unless, of course, a situation is mishandled, a wave is misread, and close and intimate acquaintance is made with rocks, sandbanks, fibreglass surfaces and razor-sharp fins, which does occur alarmingly regularly. In terms of violence, it does happen when the human beast gets too closely caught up with other human beasts and turf-wars and proprietary attitudes are brought into play on the water; but fortunately it's a rare enough occurrence.
Avoiding too much interaction with The Human Beast in the water is the prime reason for turning up in the dark of the night to chase waves. Our breaks here are famous and well-known, and eagerly sought out by people from all over the world. At any time other than Dark Dawn it can be very hard to get a wave. An additional, altogether much more grimmer aspect is lent to our pre-dawn exercises by the pandemic that is engulfing the world: in some countries people are dying by the thousands from an infectious disease, and we are urged to stay well away from other people, to try to control the spread of the virus causing the deaths.
