by John Muir
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FIN SIGHTING MEMORIES
I recently revisited the beach at Waipu Cove in the winter and therefore non-tourist season. I had not been back in thirty years. That once only happy Christmas and New Year period scorched deeply into the enjoyable section of the memory banks of a pubescent teen. Everything was different from the way I remembered it, yet nothing had changed. As I stood at the top of the very gentle slope of the beach down to the surf, the sun and the sand peeled away the fog of all those many years since those early high school days.
Strangely, rekindled out of some long ago ingrained habit I found my eyes casting just beyond the surf-line for the telltale fins of any shark who might threaten the swimmers, even though there were no swimmers in the winter-cold surf.
Then, it was summer school holidays and therefore beach time. It was special for me at that early teen stage of life. It was the time when male bonds and friendships are not threatened by the presence of nubile female bodies, only a distraction. Maybe I am lying just a little bit, as I do remember a lot of time spent looking at those angelic creatures as they walked by. I just did not know what to do about it. Well I guess I knew, but I was too shy. At that age I had not yet learned a tried and proven "line" for an approach.
The holidays were special too because I was allowed to visit and stay with my far away friend Joe. He was about a year older than I was and his influence on me was more like that of an admired older brother. Everything he did, I wanted to do.
One of Joe's skills was his qualification as a lifeguard, a duty he took seriously during his summer school holidays. Any working volunteer lifeguard member of the Surf Lifesaving Club stayed rent free, in the clubhouse. Though I could barely swim to save myself, Joe had somehow wangled it for me to stay overnight at the clubhouse.
The mere thought of it. Me, with all those "heroes to the female species" lifeguards. Joe even borrowed a spare tie on head cap so I looked like a member. There was nothing wrong with my physique, just something lacking in my swimming abilities and other qualifications. I marched well in the surf carnival anyway.
To justify the cap and the accommodation I was allocated duties. I would sometimes tread the shallows where the infants were playing outside the safety flags. Then with all the authority a breaking voice can deliver to young children who knew no difference in the pitch of a voice, I would say, "Please move between the safety flags so we can keep an eye on you, thank you."
At other times, it was shark watch, with other more qualified personnel. I had never seen a shark, except dead fillets, cooked in batter.
There was no viewing platform, the clubhouse veranda would be ideal, except it was too far back from the sea when the tide was out. On my first day of sharing the shark watch duty, I was standing on the beach midway between the clubhouse and the sea. It was not very highly elevated. The view was almost at sea level and therefore the angle of view was almost flat. Every one of the distant dark shadowy wavelets took on the ominous shape of the fin of a man-eating shark, which would disappear below the surface for a few seconds then re-appear a few metres further on. Over the long hours of watching there was never any diminution in the numbers of shark fins. There were dozens out there.
The urge to run off to the clubhouse and start turning the handle of the shark siren only needed the hint of an approving nod from the experienced surf club member. I remember he was old because he must have been 19, maybe 20 years old. I do not recall if I ever knew his name.
He never relinquished control of the shark spotting binoculars. They were ideal for girl spotting too and he had long since given up using them to look in the direction of my frequent frantic pointing. The shark watch duty was a serious responsibility, not be undertaken lightly, I was not impressed by his cavalier attitude.
Though I will concede, it was he not me that spotted the fins away in the distance. They were still at least a long 100 metres beyond the furthest offshore swimmer, probably more. I made ready to dash for the clubhouse and start the shark siren. Though I was not a good swimmer, I was certainly a very fast runner. It would be a slaughter if the sharks started a feeding frenzy. I would be saving scores of lives.
Every few seconds I would look at him and ask again then again if I should sound the alarm. Every question replied to with the same negative nod of the head. This was frustrating me. Here we were in a position to save hundreds of lives and we were doing nothing. I had to blurt out some sort of protest.
"Well then, when are you going to sound the alarm?"
"Oh," he replied in a casual uncaring tone, "I'll wait 'til they get among the swimmers."
I was shocked. Horrified! Aghast! Totally mystified by his response, I was quite determined to take matters into my own hands and dash for the clubhouse and the siren. Thousands would escape those gnarling teeth. I would get a Victoria Cross, maybe a Congressional Medal of Honour, even a knight-hood?
A chubby youngster about nine or ten years old came running from the sea, and across the flat sand toward where we were standing. He was yelling to us at the top of his voice.
"Mr Lifeguard, Mr Lifeguard." He stopped breathless in front of us. Bending at the waist, arms extended reaching down to his knees to support his body as though just having completed a marathon.
"Yes, what is it son?" responded my lifeguard colleague.
"Out there, out there," the kid panted on and weakly pointed out to sea, "just past the low breakers."
"What is it son?" I mimicked my colleague.
"Fins," he went on between puffs, "several."
I thought, ‘Good on you kid, you know what to look for.’ I was ready for my heroic dash to sound the alarm. In my mind I could already see the sea being pink with the blood of so many innocents like this youngster.
The kid straightened up and took a few more deep breaths, then looked directly at my old colleague.
"What sort of dolphins are they?" the youngster asked.
I thought, ‘Stupid smart-arse kid, what would he know?’
“Bottle-nose from the shape of the fin," my experienced colleague replied. "We get quite a few around here."
All three of us looked out to sea in the direction where the fins had been. Just as quickly as they had arrived, they had disappeared. I did not see any more fins that summer. I am still not sure whether to count that summer as my first sighting of dolphins. They were the only fins I saw. After all, maybe it was sharks.
