The Winter Sea

by Morrissey, Di

  He sighed. He pushed his pain deep down, into the hole in his heart. Not that anyone really understood the depth of this sorrow, for Joe’s natural ebullience always rose to the surface to disguise it, and his cheerful demeanour, ready smile and teasing words hid the grief with which he lived. His bones creaked as he lifted himself out of bed.

  And yet, in spite of the sadness he felt for the loss of Bridie, he knew that he had much for which to be thankful. His family and business flourished. Ricardo had survived the war safely and had come home, apparently little the worse for the experience. He had married Rosina, a nice girl of Italian parentage, whom he had met in Wollongong. They now had three children, Raimondo and two younger daughters.

  Carlo had also married Gail, a local Australian girl, and they had a daughter, Greta. Neither Patrick nor Pietro, who was now living in Los Angeles, had married, despite Joe’s hints that he would like more grandchildren.

  Even though two of Joe’s nephews from Italy had been captured by the Allies in North Africa and had spent the remainder of the war as prisoners of war, Joe had to admit that, apart from the loss of Bridie, the Australian Aquinos had survived the war relatively unscathed. Franco, who had failed to get his nephews out of Italy before the war started, was told when the war finished that the two brothers had died in the fighting. After the war, he was scornful when he heard that some Italian immigrants in Wollongong wanted to save enough money to be able to return to their villages and set up their own businesses.

  ‘Such a foolish idea,’ he had told Joe over a coffee when Joe had visited him in Wollongong. ‘There is still so much poverty and hardship back in Italy, why would you bother? We are far better off in Australia.’

  ‘I can see their point,’ Joe replied. ‘Many Italian fishing families on the south coast lost money in the war when their fishing boats were requisitioned to be used as minesweepers, or as cargo carriers. And if that’s not bad enough, I know of Italians who are still regarded with suspicion by their neighbours because they were imprisoned in internment camps. Maybe they have a right to want to leave.’

  Nevertheless, many Italians continued to see Australia as the land of opportunity, and in the 1950s there was a huge growth in migration. Some of these new Italian immigrants made their way to the south coast of New South Wales and into the fishing industry.

  Joe watched the new arrivals blend into the Australian way of life in their own ways, and to the local Australians they were all just Italians. Joe, however, could see that there was a subtle distinction in the attitudes of those who had arrived in the twenties, those born in Australia to Italian parents and the more recent postwar arrivals. Sometimes he thought that these differences almost led to an ‘us and them’ mentality, which was creating problems. While the influx of more Italian fishermen helped rebuild the fishing industry in Whitby Point after its decline in the war years, Joe became concerned that the growth was too rapid.

  ‘Most of that new lot are a bunch of amateurs, who call themselves fishermen. They don’t know what they’re doing. They overfish and they’ll bugger it up for everyone,’ he fumed to Ricardo one evening after their boats had taken a smaller catch than usual. ‘The fisheries people just keep handing out licences like lollies and more and more boats are coming in. They’re all after the same population of fish. How will the fish have a chance to breed? Everyone knows that the numbers of flathead we’re getting now are much lower than a few years ago and I can’t say I’m surprised. There’s too much competition.’

  ‘But Papà, if that’s true, why doesn’t the government do something?’ asked Ricardo.

  ‘Politics,’ Joe replied. ‘Different states have different regulations. Neither the states nor the federal government really want to know about fishing. They put it in the too-hard basket, and no one will accept responsibility for it.’

  ‘What can we do about it? We can’t change things,’ said Ricardo, trying to soothe his angry father.

  ‘I’m going to try to,’ said Joe with determination. ‘Take the size of the mesh holes in the nets, for example. If there were bigger holes, smaller fish could get away and have the chance to grow, instead of just being discarded when they are caught because they are too little. It’s such a waste. I’m not the only one who thinks that. I’ve heard that the scientists, the CSIRO, are also concerned about the decline in fish stocks. They have organised for a group of fishing inspectors to come and see what happens if different-sized mesh is used. I’ve volunteered to take them out and show them. Want to come?’

  *

  A few weeks later, Joe and Ricardo took three fishing inspectors out on one of their boats to catch fish using nets with different-sized mesh. From the sampling, it was obvious to Joe that the best size mesh to use in order to maintain fish stocks at a reasonable level was one with a gap no smaller than eight centimetres. The fisheries inspectors seemed to agree with him and he received a letter from the CSIRO to thank him for taking part in an ‘invaluable experiment’. Joe was elated. He felt that at last something would be done to make the fishing industry more sustainable. He was devastated when he learned that the New South Wales government proposed to make the minimum mesh size only six centimetres.

  ‘Useless, totally useless. That’s not going to help fish numbers,’ he fumed to Patrick.

  ‘I don’t understand how the government could have taken such a decision,’ said Patrick. ‘Your results were so good. Everyone said so. Why weren’t they implemented?’

  ‘The net manufacturers objected. They claimed that it would be too hard and too expensive to make any adjustments. Of course they could do it. But they think that if they complain loudly enough, they won’t have to make the changes and so they will maintain their profits.’ Joe pulled his fingers through his greying hair in frustration, as though trying to tear it out.

  ‘There’s nothing more you can do then?’ Patrick said sympathetically.

  ‘Patrick, I think that this is just the first battle. The war is going to be a long one, and I’m going to fight the government and all those cowboys out there who want to get rich quick and don’t care if they ruin the industry in the process.’

  Finally the New South Wales government did realise that fish stocks, especially flathead, the fish most favoured by consumers, were being depleted at an alarming rate. So it came up with a novel solution. It thought that changing the names of less popular fish would make them sound more palatable, increase the demand for them and take the pressure off flathead. Much to the amusement of the Aquinos, nannygai were now called red fish and leatherjackets became known as butterfish.

  ‘Changing the names of fish isn’t going to stop the cowboys. They’ll just overfish those as well,’ said Joe, shaking his head at the naivety of the government.

  The last straw for Joe came when the New South Wales government restricted the legal size limit of flathead that could be caught.

  ‘Sounds like a good idea, I know,’ Joe told Ricardo as he poured them both a drink late one afternoon after the day’s fishing. ‘But now we have to compete unfairly with the Victorians down south because their legal size limit is smaller and they can still send their undersized flathead to the Sydney markets. Everybody – the cowboys, the government – seems to want to ruin us.’

  ‘What are you going to do, Papà? Have you got any ideas?’ asked Ricardo.

  ‘I have been thinking about what would be best for us. First, I want to start up a fishing co-operative here at Whitby Point. That way we are less reliant on the Sydney fish markets. Secondly, I think we should look at serious tuna fishing.’

  ‘I think the idea of a co-op is great, but the tuna season is very short. Will it be worthwhile?’ asked Ricardo anxiously.

  ‘Yes, I know it only goes from early October till December, but I think we can adapt our larger trawlers to tuna fishing without too much expense. What is really good is that the fish-canning factories, Pecks in Sydney and Greens in Eden, have upped their price for tuna. Now that makes tuna a very viabl
e addition to our usual catch.’

  Joe put his plan into action the following spring when the weather was calm and the tuna were on the move north. He used fishing poles imported from Japan and lures made to resemble squid, which he imported from America. A crewman would toss plenty of live squid out of the trawler to attract the tuna to the side of the boat. Two poles were attached to the lines and lure as it would take two men working in tandem to swing one fish aboard. Each man had his pole resting in a harness to help take the weight, so the heavy fish could be flung quickly over the railing of the trawler and onto the deck behind them. When the tuna hit the deck the quick-release hooks allowed the men to catch the next fish as quickly as possible. Joe told everyone that they could expect the work to be fast and furious once they had the tuna swimming next to the boat.

  One day as the trawler moved far out from the coast Joe told his sons what his father had told him: to watch the sea ahead and look for signs of the migrating tuna. The clues could be either dolphins, which frequently swam with the big fish, or birds, which would be diving for whatever the tuna were chasing.

  Suddenly Patrick shouted that he could see that the surface of the sea in front of them was rippled and he now spotted the diving birds. As they got closer they could make out a huge school of fish, their dorsal fins occasionally jutting from the surface of the water. He pointed to a patch of ocean where small birds seemed to be dancing on the surface of the sea.

  ‘That’s where the lead fish will be,’ Patrick shouted over the noise of the engine.

  ‘We all know that,’ Carlo said scathingly, as the boat drew closer to the mass of fish. ‘This school is enormous. I reckon it’d cover an area bigger than a tennis court.’

  Joe ignored the bickering and lowered a bucket to take the temperature of the water.

  ‘Sixty-five degrees,’ he told everyone. ‘Those tuna will be yellowfin. They like the warmer currents. I think we’ll try over there.’ He pointed ahead to where the water surface was marked by a line of flotsam. ‘That line is where the cool front from the Southern Ocean meets the warmer waters of the eastern Australian current. If you look past it towards the deep blue colour, you’ll see what we’re really after.’

  Their eyes turned to where Joe pointed and they saw a bronze patch seething with flashing dark blue bodies that showed glimpses of silver and gold as they swam through the water. Joe told one of the crew to start throwing the live bait to the tuna and everyone took up their poles, ready to start landing the fish.

  But no one on the trawler was prepared for the onslaught of the huge fish as the tuna snatched at the bait and grabbed at the lures in a wild mass. Two poles flew overboard and one of the crew lost his balance on the slippery deck, but he resumed his place and continued throwing a lure into the turbulent water filled with ferocious fish.

  The men worked quickly, never taking their eyes off the lure. The moment one disappeared into a gaping mouth, they lifted the poles in an effort to hook the fish, bending their knees and pulling the flexible pole upwards, so that the fish was carried into the boat on its own momentum. With what looked like a simple flick, the men were hauling in the fish faster than Joe could count. A tuna of twenty or thirty pounds was literally flying through the air, sometimes overshooting the trawler altogether and going over the other side of the boat and back into the sea to swim away at dizzying speed. Joe thought back to his fishing days in Italy where it was a triumph to catch just a single fish. Here they caught dozens and dozens.

  The boat slowly circled the school, its deck alive with drumming tuna. The power of their constantly beating tails, their mouths gasping, forced their gills open so hard they produced a strange squeaking noise. Joe thought that if he strained his ears closer he would understand their cries as they died, their large black eyes watching him.

  When they returned to port with their huge catch, everyone was celebrating.

  ‘That was just amazing,’ said Ricardo. ‘If we could catch fish like that all the time, we would never have any worries.’

  But that spring was a hard one. The subsequent catches had been smaller and the weather was frequently so bad that no one could take their trawler out at all. Joe spent hours by the radio listening to weather reports and swapping news with those skippers who had taken their chances and had ventured out further down the coast. Joe also spoke to the spotters.

  Most of the fishermen used spotters, pilots who flew their planes over the sea looking for schools of fish, especially tuna in the season. Joe had a particular mate who would notify him at once if he flew over any interesting activity that could indicate schools of fish. Chris was a young pilot, but a good one, who was always excellent company when he visited Whitby Point. So when Joe received a call from Chris early one morning, to tell him that he could see a big school of fish a few miles off a well-known reef, Joe decided to take the trawler out.

  ‘Ricardo, see where Carlo and Patrick are and get a crew together. Chris has radioed in about a big school. He thinks they could be yellowfin.’

  ‘What about this weather? It’s not good. What’s the forecast?’ Ricardo asked.

  ‘Dicey, but my instincts tell me it’s clearing.’

  ‘Okay, Papà, I guess you know best,’ said Ricardo in a voice which suggested that he was not as confident as his father.

  In no time Ricardo had found Patrick and Carlo and rounded up three more crew members. The gear was checked and they quickly set off in the Egret, one of Joe’s smaller trawlers.

  ‘It would be better to go out in something bigger, but it would take too long to round up more crew and we need to get going quickly,’ Ricardo explained.

  ‘This will be fine,’ replied Joe. ‘The Egret is a good vessel. She’ll get the job done. Anyway, let’s get this show on the road. If we don’t clear the harbour right away the harbour master might advise us not to go at all and we’ll be stuck in port.’

  They passed through the harbour and out to sea, but within twenty minutes conditions had deteriorated as the south-east swell worsened, whipped by a stiffening wind. Joe glanced at the sky and exchanged a look with Ricardo.

  ‘We’ve got a fair distance to the reef. Hope that the weather doesn’t get any worse. Chris gave me pretty specific co-ordinates and said that it was a heavy-sized school. Lots of birds marking the lead fish.’

  Everyone was wrapped in their oilskins. Carlo and the other men sheltered in the cockpit as the Egret ploughed through the rising wind and waves. Then a rain squall reduced their visibility.

  Patrick peered through his binoculars, trying to make out birds or any other clues that might lead them to the school. ‘It’s near impossible to see anything in this rain,’ he said.

  Ricardo nodded. ‘Needle in a haystack. But we might get lucky.’

  ‘Luck has nothing to do with it,’ said Joe cheerfully. Patrick and Ricardo exchanged a smile.

  ‘Nice to know that you’re still optimistic,’ said Patrick.

  ‘What’s that to starboard?’ called Joe.

  ‘Sea birds. They’re either being buffeted by the wind or they’re diving onto something!’ shouted Patrick.

  ‘It’s not far off the reef marker Chris gave us, they must be travelling fast. Big fish,’ said Joe and spun the wheel.

  They were alert as the boat changed direction, bracing themselves as the waves hit the Egret broadside. Joe brought the wheel around, steering the trawler in a line to meet the travelling school of fish.

  ‘They’ve come off the reef. Been feeding there,’ Joe muttered.

  ‘That patch there, ahead,’ shouted Carlo from the bow, his excited voice rising above the sound of the waves.

  ‘Right, let’s get into them,’ called Joe as the crew jumped to their positions, ready to get the lines out.

  The vessel was heaving in the growing swell, yet they managed to land several large tuna before conditions deteriorated even more. They turned back towards the reef to make another run, but the current had become treacherous and waves wer
e now towering over them and breaking across the deck.

  ‘Let’s give it one last shot.’ Joe could hardly be heard over the wind and rain.

  ‘Papà, are you sure that you want to do this? Maybe we should just try to get back to port,’ Ricardo shouted back.

  Patrick took out the life jackets and handed them to everyone. Joe hesitated, then he told Patrick to take the wheel briefly while he quickly put his jacket on before sending him back to the Egret’s rail with the rest of the crew. They were all knee-deep in rushing water as they gamely threw out the pole lines, even though it was hard to see where the fish were.

  Above the sound of the waves they could all hear Joe shouting, ‘The buggers are still out there!’

  And, almost at once, they hooked a big one. But as the tuna came close to the boat it became clear that the rough seas would make it difficult to lift the large fish on board with the poles. Ricardo leapt to the railing with the gaff ready to strike a blow to kill it. Carlo was ready to lash the fish to the side.

  ‘Ricardo!’ shouted Joe as he saw a huge wave roll towards the vessel. ‘No! Leave it!’

  But his call was too late. The wave hit with great force. From the wheelhouse came the sound of breaking glass and wood. Joe was left desperately clinging to the wheel as the wave swamped the Egret in its watery grip. She was a tough old tub and she righted herself even after taking the full force of the rogue wave. But this was too late for Ricardo, who had been swept overboard.

  ‘Get the lifebuoy over,’ screamed Patrick to Carlo. But Carlo was already pulling the bright red and white buoy from the wheelhouse wall, and he hurled it into the churning sea where Ricardo had last been seen.

  While Joe furiously spun the wheel and then cut the engine back to neutral, the Egret almost stood on her stern. Patrick scrambled onto the shattered remains of the wheelhouse roof looking for any sign of Ricardo.