I don't believe there's anything cosmic or divine or morally superior about whales and dolphins or sharks or trees, but I do think that everything that lives is holy and somehow integrated; and on cloudy days I suspect that these extraordinary phenomena, and the hundreds of tiny, modest versions no one hears about, are an ocean, an earth, a Creator, something shaking us by the collar, demanding our attention, our fear, our vigilance, our respect, our help.

The blank page doesn't bother me. It's the voice in my head (not always my own) that gives me the yips. It's worse when I'm not making stuff up.

Humour is God's special gift to humanity. Handy, because it turns out to be necessary.

The desert is a spiritual place, we vaguely understand, and the sea the mere playground of our hedonism.

A problem not so well understood is the growing presence of plastics in the marine food chain. If we don't make big changes fast, the fish we do save may no longer be safe to eat.

It's impossible to imagine what Australia would be like without surfing.

Being afreaid proves you're alive and awake.