Written by Jon van Wyk
Long time ocean aficionado, surfer, and Alive columnist Jon van Wyk, pays homage to his favourite place…
As a young boy, my first memory of arriving in New Zealand was sitting in our family sedan driving slowly through a quiet, east-coast country town on the way to a new home, past a giant billboard advertising the movie ‘Jaws’.
Our family moved to a small beach house and it was during this time that I first embarked on my love affair with the ocean, spending long lazy afternoons during winters watching endless waves as they broke along the shoreline. To me, it was at once a place of serenity, calm and playful, and as I grew to know her, also a proud mistress, at times jealous, and quick to anger.
Several years passed quickly, and it was almost inevitable that we, the lucky few, being myself, my brother and a couple of other neighbourhood kids, would venture out on old borrowed surfboards and begin to ride waves. The year was 1979, I had a transistor radio, and we had just started Middle School.
Our science teacher – an ex-surfer himself, taught us that in 1897, French physician Rene Quinton discovered a 98% match between our blood plasma and sea water, or what he called ‘ocean plasma’.
From then on, we would often joke that we had ‘water in the blood,’ but to me it only ever seemed to be the correct explanation and I often felt it as a quickening in my chest – when on cold frosty winter mornings, we would see that a storm had skirted the coast overnight, pushing up long lazy lines of swell from the south, and from our lookout we could see perfect waves lined up along the point like corrugations on an iron roof in the light of dawn – each one a perfect replica of the last.
Sometimes, when swell and tide allowed, we would rush to paddle out at daybreak and be able to ride waves for what seemed an eternity as they wrapped around the point and then along the beach, held up by an offshore breeze that would blow misty spray around our faces where we sat just behind the break, laughing with pure joy as we watched each other paddle back out, legs like jelly after having ridden a pristine wall of water for what seemed like miles.
These were mornings when it seemed that the whole world was holding its breath for fear of disturbing such surreal beauty, and the air would be heavy with salt-laden mist. We were all high on the energy of the ocean and the natural buzz that accompanied it became our addiction, much to the chagrin of our concerned parents and teachers.
Our town was directly in the path of the May – October Humpback Whale migration route, and we would often see them from our lounge room window during autumn, traversing the wide sandy bay in front of our house; just shy of the horizon, silhouetted black against the morning sun as they migrated to the warmer waters of Tonga for the winter.
One late autumn morning was to be forever etched in my mind. That morning we entered the water as usual for an early morning surf before school, and I, full of energy, had paddled out a little faster and further than the rest of the group.
Suddenly, there, looking somehow out of place in the relatively shallow water, was the most majestic thing I had ever seen – a gleaming, living whale, lying half submerged in the water. At the time I remember thinking that it must have been sick or lost, but it didn’t seem to be showing any signs of distress as it exhaled a blast of spray and looked directly at me for what seemed like a heart-stopping eternity, before submerging and gliding gracefully away. The others told me afterwards that they had been screaming for me to paddle back in to shore, but I hadn’t heard anything, remembering only the realisation that the whale had been so sentient, so alive, so close and so majestic.
Afterwards, when the adrenaline gave out and I sagged, weak-kneed on the beach, did the true import of what I had experienced sink in. “It could have been a shark!”, one of my friends declared excitedly. I shivered as the image of the ‘Jaws’ poster I had seen several years earlier, arrived unbidden, in my mind.
Later that morning we sat through the drudge of morning assembly, listening while the rugby team tallied up the injuries and points scored over their weekend matches. I sat with a glazed expression on my face as I thought about my encounter in the water that morning, even as my nostrils were still full of seawater and my hair still damp. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was a much smaller part of nature’s hierarchy than I had previously thought, a fragile stranger in an ocean that mimicked my own chemistry. It was then I remembered the most incredible thing of all, the reason I hadn’t been scared.
As the whale gazed at me for those few seconds of unspoken connection, I could have sworn it smiled at me, one mammal to another, in the sharing of an ocean bond. To this day, I often wonder what it might have said to me if able to do so, but upon refection, that moment of unspoken connection has lasted longer in my psyche than any words ever could.
Album of the month
War of the Worlds by Jeff Wayne
Jeff Wayne’s “War of the Worlds” is a groundbreaking concept album which manages to be a perfect fusion of rock, orchestral, and narrative storytelling, brilliantly adapting H.G. Wells’ classic sci-fi novel of an imagined alien invasion of earth during the Victorian era.
Released in June 1978, this concept album features an impressive cast, including Richard Burton as the archetypal British narrator, and musical contributions from seminal artists of the time such as David Essex and Phil Lynott. The album’s innovative use of synthesisers, strings, groundbreaking sound effects and vocal arrangements, creates a comprehensive soundscape that dramatically brings the ‘invasion’ to life, leaving listeners to wonder if it could actually be real.
Wayne’s genius production aesthetic combines dramatic storytelling with infectious melodies, notably in tracks like “The Eve of the War” and “Forever Autumn.” The seamless blend of music and narrative is engaging, making listeners feel like they are literally part of the unfolding destruction. Released in the last days of radio, just before MTV, “War of the Worlds” remains a pioneering work, relying on sound to involve listeners yet untainted by garish music videos, showcasing Wayne’s incredible creativity, and solidifying its status as a landmark in rock and theatrical music history. Select your on-ear headphones and listen to “War of the Worlds”, with your eyes closed.
