Christmas Fox Bay 1997

 

The mountain watches over the bay, a black shrouded sentinel flanked by the West Head and silhouetted by the evening sun.

The wind encompasses all, rattles the garden webbing, shakes the windows, creaks the timbers, tosses the sea in the bay and stills the dolphin gull on the wing. The wind pushes the weather past us, sliding up from the south west towards the coast ridge, a thin black line on the horizon capped by the eastern finial head.

Even the roar of the wind leaves stillness, filled by the clunking jenny, the barking dogs and the rhythmic "wocca" of a distant chinook heading for the refuelers.

The afternoon sun bleaches the flotsam of bones washed up on the sandy beach, while red beaked oyster catches whistle past, piercing the salt laden air.

The clouds sail past, pausing to rain on the waters between the heads. There is no land between us and the ice, no baffles for the southerlies. After dusk an eerie green arctic glow proclaims the continent to the south. The world moves slowly, ignoring hasty clouds.

The wind hurries while the land stays still. This is Fox Bay.