*OCCIDENTAL DRIFT

THE BLEEDING EDGE OF SURF EXPLORATION IS A HOT, INHOSPITABLE PLACE. BUT WORTH THE MISSION.

- PETE GEALL

The Marina Sports Club. Situated in the bowels of a restaurant that bears the same name, overlooking the sluice of this ramshackle harbour town. An inauspicious place to start a trip - avoiding eye contact, drinking tiny stubbies of beer, and listening to the broken dreams of someone in up to their neck in this remote corner of the sea-faring world. You owe me 10K, Daniel, says a sailor into the payphone across from us. I know. I know you are in deeper than me… No, I'll pay your man once you pay me… Stop that, I told you… Don't you dare bring my son into this, you bastard.

He hangs up and downs the last of his beer in a combined flourish, a faithful pastiche of the washed-up seaman stereotype. A scattering of bottles, paperwork, and half-smoked cigarettes line the circular table he returns to.

We sit surrounded by macabre aquatic trophies hoisted from the bountiful waters. Fins and appendages of fish species unknown dunked in thick varnish hung incongruously on the walls next to American baseball memorabilia. I grab another stubbie and return to our table for a detailed route-planning discussion with Greg Long and Al Mackinnon. All of us have been on our arduous journeys to this point. Months of planning have morphed into a blur of nights and days spent under the unremitting glare of airport LEDs and barked announcements.

We still have a fair way to travel, primarily overcoming the significant hurdle of organising a boat transfer to a stretch of coast impossible to reach by any other method. Hence our presence down near the docks. Unfortunately, we've found a different, rougher scene than expected. The transit season is long passed. Only salty strays and wounded yachts are left.