An old red chug-tug rests wearily at its mooring. It rocks to the lap of ocean tickling its belly and shimmers in reflections along the skirt of it, along the lines where its body enters the deep green sea; the "Sea Lion Wellington". Further out in the open water a smaller sailing vessel crab-walks across the flat plane of reflected sky. A motorised tinny criss-crosses in the other direction. Two tiny life-jacket clad fishermen pose, heads still in a turn, tracking the oystered rock-roughage which is the shore. They speed out to sea, trailing a barely visible wake of white wash. Even further out, more white-sailed craft jostle and tack, up and down-wind. Great hunkering mountain ridges brood behind them, silent and monstrous in their contemplation of this whole harbour scene.
A white gull flattens and rides the air in a flapping of loops and breezy spirals. Beady eyes flicker to scan the shapes beneath her. She is quick. Her feathers are hefty and they shine. She is queen of her scrapdom.
"Strait Shipping" in capitals shouts across the vista between us. This great scrap of metal sluices in a slow tail-slide to angle away and out of the harbour. It breathes great bellyfuls of air to exhale acrid smoke from its many fluted exhaust towers. Smaller ships, like minnows in the shade of some great water monster hurry to give it free passage. Move, or be downtrodden!
