I grew up in a whaling town. We didn't stop whaling in Australia until 1978. And I've always lived in fishing communities. You could say I'm from the Redneck Wing of marine conservation. Everything I know about the sea I learnt at the end of a spear or a hook. Seems weird to admit it, but I hunted and killed my way to enlightenment. Eventually you see where you've been. All the traces you leave are gaps and absences. And it's a sick feeling, knowing you might bequeath a full dose of Nothing to those who come after you.

In Australia surfing was for the oiks. It was always rebellious. And sadly it was for a long time a bit unreflective and macho and anti-intellectual. Unlike other sports it was essentially a youth cult, like rock and roll. But like rock and roll its people grew up.

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

Yet however comforting and peaceful beach-combing is, it ends up like the sea, as disturbing as it is reassuring. In dark moments I believe that walking on a beach at low tide is to be looking for death, or at least anticipating it. You will only find the dead, the spilled and the cast-off. Things torn free of their life or their place.

Humour's the pay-off for all that existential horror.

And you can't help but worry for them, love them, want for them - those who go on down the close, foetid galleries of time and space without you.

Surfers are the canaries down the mine. Those of us who surf spend more time than anyone soaking in whatever the sea has become. We're suspended in consequences, you might say.