Soundings

North Bondi Nocturne.

Like many others, I'm still adjusting and getting used to the seasonal change and shortened days on this side of our watery globe and where possible have been kicking my work day off earlier than usual in order to get home to sneak in a evening saltwater session. 

The water is still amazingly warm here as the Eastern Australian Current only peaks temperature-wise long after the summer crowds have packed up their towels and moved on. Despite the increasing wind-chill factor we are being spoilt of late after what was a fairly mediocre and wet summer. 

Sitting between sets lately I've often found myself unexpectedly submerging my conscious thoughts and finding myself instead floating in all manner of deep reservoirs of memory and recollection. Snatches of songs previously long since forgotten; snippets of internal and external conversations historical and hysterical; dream sequences intertwined with cinematic favourites and soundbites, all have ebbed and flowed through me like the tides that alternately improve or diminish the action of swell on sandbanks.

My internal soundings were interrupted the other day, however, by a large dark shadow moving through the clear, sunlit water close by, like a half-banished fear returning to remind its owner of their mortality. My fearful frown broke quickly into a relieved and broad smile though as I looked in amazement and marvelled at the speed, grace and ease of movement with which an incredibly large ray seemingly flew by, barely a few feet from several pairs of dangling limbs.

So often we find ourselves lost in our thoughts whilst all manner of life's processes continue around us, especially in the water, a strange paradox given the benefits to one's soul of repeated oceanic soakings.

Counterclockwise

‘Average surfers like myself make memories out of mere moments’

Those words are not mine (click the quote or follow the link to their fine source), but the belief and sentiment are shared. 

Last weekend: Saturday evening, peering into the semi-blackness, fishermen casting off the rocks into the rip, bikini-clad women still diving into the warm autumnal ocean, an impossibly blue and pink sunset fading over stark modernist silhouettes, a cormorant dives for dinner, fish break the surface, pursued by something unseen, something bigger.

My feet come up, hands too, from seated to semi-prone I shift, effecting a strange waterborne press-up on suddenly all too thin fibreglass matting.

Then a sudden disturbance, an obvious change of direction - just under the surface - no more than a few feet away. No fin break but twin concentric boils where a tail and dorsals might be. One larger. One Smaller.

Counterclockwise. 

A sudden silence.

A shallow breath, the scanning of water around and ahead, a shrug between myself and another and a couple of small crumbling peaks pass before swift sandfall.

© felix ratcliff 2011

Time Passages

Majestic Ben Buckler.

'In life it's inevitable that at different times different responsibilities will take hold, like children or work and in those times surfing becomes a different player in your life.'  Tom Carroll

It's been five years now since I relocated from Southern Ocean views to those of the Tasman Sea. Warmer waters to be sure but often too damn close now to the rat race that I now increasingly begrudgingly run. My proximity to the sea keeps me going, an ever present ongoing gift. The beauty and changeability of this area never ceases to amaze and inspire, the photo above taken but a few minutes from my current digs. 

My time in the ocean over the last six months has, unfortunately, become sparser and consequently more precious, stolen before dark or snuck in before the daily commute, as I'm sure it has for many others. 

Flicking through a back issue of SW recently (#289), I came across the quote above  by Tom Carroll in SW Editor Vaughan Blakey's article Closer. Carroll's words eloquently sum up the last couple of years for me and no doubt, for many, many others.

Age has its rewards however as I've introduced my youngest son (2.5yrs) to the wonders of neoprene and the shorebreak and smiled broadly at his expressions of unbridled joy as he learns to experience the ocean. I've even got my 19yr old interested in the relative merits of a water landing as opposed to the bone-crunch of concrete and steel after being jettisoned by his maple and urethane steed.

With the sun still warm, and the winds becoming cooler and offshore, here's to the future, in whatever form it chooses to manifest itself.

© felix ratcliff 2011

Radios Appear!!

It's not everyday that you get the chance to meet and chat with one of your all-time rock heroes face-to-face, but midday on Saturday saw my little bloke Byron and I briefly hanging out with the one and only Deniz Tek and his lovely partner Anne at his exhibition opening at Sydney's Hand Of Law Gallery .

Deniz was/is in town for a few gigs and to present some of his latest paintings. A good friend of mine, Peter Wise has done some photographic work for Deniz on some of his solo albums and I was happy to chat to Deniz about that, some recent adventures of his State-side as well as his work and the reissue Radio Birdman posters by Warwick Gilbert available at the Gallery.

Always a man of action, (I'll resist the obvious Flamin' Groovies one-liner!), Deniz' work ranges from the representational to examples clearly influenced by modernist abstraction and the action-painting of the late great Jackson Pollock.

As my own digs are already chock full of art nd objects already, I opted to purchase just three small works done on ceramic tiles by Deniz as a memento - two organic abstracts and the Birdman Logo.

Big thanks to Deniz, Anne and Dave from Hand Of Law Gallery!!

© felix ratcliff 2011 (and respective artists)

Surf City (Slight return!)

Have had a few nice sessions lately. Beachies mostly, late afternoon and early evenings up the Northern Beaches, and Southside closer to home.

Nothing really sizeable but high on the smile scale nonetheless.

Nice little sunset-lit high-tide cover-up on dusk last night had me beaming from ear to ear despite the saltwater rinse cycle that followed soon after.

Another thing that has left me with a big grin recently is:

SURF CITY: COLLABORATIONS BY ARTIST LUKE TAAFFE & PHOTOGRAPHER RYAN HEYWOOD - NAVIGATING OMNIPOTENT SEASCAPES & PSYCHEDELIC SURF ICONOGRAPHY

now showing at The National Grid Gallery

Had the added pleasure of meeting the talented Mr Ryan Heywood who agreed to let me take and post a few photos here. As his artistic collaborator Luke Taaffe was not on hand, Mr Heywood chose to not claim the laurels alone and opted for the shaggy veiled pseudoportrait you can see here. Thanks Ryan!

© felix ratcliff 2011 (and respective artists)

On The Beach: A Mother remembered

 Patricia Mary McGrath  

Mordialloc Beach, Victoria, Australia, late 1940s

It's been just over a year now since my dear Mum - Patricia Ratcliff - passed away at the age of 82 in my home town of Launceston, Tasmania. Originally from Dandenong in Victoria, Mum was a keen waterwoman all her life, and swam, snorkelled and frolicked in the ocean and fresh water until well into her late 70s. 

The photo above shows her as a beautiful young single woman on Mordialloc Beach, halfway between Melbourne and the Mornington Peninsula in the late 1940s. 

Mum told me a story once about travelling to Torquay a little later than when that photo was taken with a bunch of friends and surfing on a sixteen foot 'toothpick' wood and plywood board. She had a wonderful time she recalled, until a clubbie with a metal tipped surfski hit her broadside and completely splintered her narrow streamlined craft!

In 1959, due to a more than passing resemblance to Ava Gardner, troubled star of On the Beach, Mum was asked to play a small role in the filming of that movie. Her response was typical and was to be repeated many times throughout her event-filled life: "I'm not going to pretend to be anyone else, I can only be myself!"

Author, historian, conservationist, mother, grandmother, retired mermaid! We miss you Mum.

© felix ratcliff 2011

Russet history

I've been putting a collection together for a while now: boards from the 60's, 70's and 80's though to the present day. Most of them are pretty well-used and show the scars and evidence of their previous lives clearly. My latest addition is an early 90s 6' Rusty, shaped and signed by Mr Preisendorfer himself for former Aussie pro Rob Bain. I don't know Rob personally but do hope to find out a more about the life of this particular stick.