SECLUDED, BUT NOT ALONE

In an era of heightened social isolation, where many of us lead lonely lives, Dangar Island offers the chance to be part of a supportive, connected community.

- SERENA COADY

MEL ANDERSON DRIFTS in a little red boat, watching the gum trees and jetties bleed off Dangar Island into the tidal river that surrounds it. To a child, Mel’s red boat might resemble a festive slipper abandoned by a giant elf. Indeed, on summer nights, there can be a kind of magic to these waters. When Mel takes her nightly rows across the Hawkesbury River north of Sydney, bioluminescence envelops the boat in an astral shade of blue. However, in the present moment, it’s daytime, and she’s lying down in her boat, in clear sight of those who live along the riverbanks. Locals glide by in tinnies filled with groceries and the ferry shuttles across to collect schoolchildren. Lying flat on her boat’s wooden surface, eyes closed, Mel appears almost lifeless.

If you were flying over Sydney’s north, you might spot Dangar Island and think, Is that a pocket pistol down there? At just 30ha, it can be difficult to navigate what Mel calls the “intense intimacy” of this gun-shaped island. And so we find her mentally drifting away in the distinctive red boat – of a design called the Dangar Island dory. “I would row out and have a break from everybody,” says Mel, an artist and mother of three. “I’d lie down and just float. Three times, people came out to save me. They thought something terrible had happened. From the beach, they would shout, ‘Are you okay?’, and I just wanted to be alone. But later, I figured out the right spot where I could lie down, and people wouldn’t notice.”

With one ferry, one cafe/general store and one bowling club, there’s no hiding from your fellow islanders. Mel expresses a sense of kinship with her neighbours, the kind of bond only forged through years of residing in close quarters. Yet there are times when she yearns for solitude.