This journey begins on an island - which shall remain nameless here - located somewhere along the south-east coast of Australia ...
Having driven south from our metropolis and with diving goggles, snorkels and fins now tucked into the compartments of our kayaks we paddled out into the late afternoon sunlight towards the island for a dive onto its long and broad reef.
I wish that I had a good underwater video camera as the flickering twiilight through swaying forests of cray kelp is cinematically splendid.
We floated cautiously over watchful wobbegong sharks, dived past curious eels surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands,of dinner plate-sized abalone and did our best to grasp at the unreachable antennae of prized crayfish retreating deeply into their dark rocky crevices.
A net full of spikey black sea urchins came back to shore with us and were later that same evening hungrily eaten with sliced tomatoes, crumbled fetta, torn basil leaf and freshly squeezed lemon juice in a manner that would make an Australo-Greek fisherman yearn for the Cyclades Islands:
Oh, and a pot full of black mussels drowned in a good green olive oil, crushed garlic, fresh cream and white wine - cooked over a roaring blackbutt log fire ...
YUM !
