The wave was out, next to a gap in the reef, on the edge of the Coral Sea. 

I’d watched it for nearly an hour as I waited for the tide to drop. When the tide and my impatience finally made a deal, I hopped into the murky little bay amidst the mangroves and started paddling, telling myself at least a couple of times that there were no crocodiles this close to town. 

There was a mat of urban debris though: small plastic soft drink bottles, polystyrene cups, lying in a line, trapped where the tide met the mangrove roots. After I got past that it was just me and the thick, black early morning water.

It was a good 750 metres out to the spot, but it was easy enough to keep myself moving; every few minutes small little sets would trip up over the reef and peel left and right. 

As I paddled I could see the high-rises of the city a few kilometres to the east. It’s in the middle of an amazing country, but not a nice place. There’s energy, and the people weren’t rude or cold. But it was unsafe: carjackings, muggings, gun violence. I lived, like most expats did, in a very secure apartment but the nagging doubts of fear still brought stress. If nothing else, it meant you couldn’t simple go for a stroll to take your mind off work. Then there was the pollution and the potholes that sprung out of nowhere causing you car to slam through its suspension and onto itself. It wasn’t awful, but living there wore me out.

Escapes helped. There were basically two of these. Hiking in the hills behind town, and surfing. I like hiking, but I’ve always been addicted to surfing. It won whenever I had the choice.

The trouble with surfing though was that getting waves meant a tricky combination of wind, swell, tide and time. There were lots of days with one or other of those things, but it was hard to get them all. Even when you did it was never great. But good enough.

I caught my first wave almost straight away: it didn’t fade off into deep water for once, but lined up along the reef enough to do a few turns. Stoked!

Just trade-wind swell, without much push, and the reef was short. But there I was, for a while, amidst a waking day, getting wave after glassy wave, on my own, on the edge of the Coral Sea.

Paddle fast, be strong, be confident and you’ll be amazed by what you can make.

You’ll also be amazed by how quickly a moment of misfortune — a cleanup set, a closeout section, an impossible double up — hammers you, drains your strength, snaps your board, and worst of all, saps your confidence.

Both photos are me. Different days, different trips. Out of luck and lucking in.

But there’s also salt spray, and flower bursts alongside overgrown cycle trails. Or the way, when you surf at the Clubs in the northerly on dusk, the smell of frying chips drifts out from the beachside takeaways, gently reminding you that soon you’ll be eating too.

If you’re out at the Bend in an offshore the same thing happens earlier in the day, but with hops from the brewery. On it’s own there’s nothing pleasant in the smell, but if the waves are ok, and the sun is out, it fits happily into an enjoyable scene.

The best smell is the odder though: the laundromat on cold damp evenings. I pass it walking to the supermarket, down the rough-and-tumble main street. The smell carries all the way to the intersection. Slightly soapy, slightly warm, slightly clean lint. I don’t think anyone actually works there at night. I don’t think the bored person waiting for their socks to dry would save you if you were being chased. But it reeks of reassurance nonetheless. An odd light in the dark.

His voice was determined though. It arced. The way his words carried through the departure lounge café, he could have been preaching to all of us. Instead, he was hectoring a phone. Lecturing an occasional voice at the other end.

It was the sort of intrusive conversation I could have hated, but it was easy eavesdropping. And anxious and unwell, I was limping home, trying not to worry, keen on distractions.

“You look around you at the people in the village darlin’, are they progressing? Are they goin’ forward, like you want to do?”

His voice shrunk the question marks into full stops.

“Remember, Lincy? You know. Lincy Toam. Lincy! Oh. Limsy. Yes Limsy. Well he’s in High school in Port Moresby now. He’s doin’ great. He’s progressing.”

A grandchild in a village somewhere, I wondered? A child? A worker from a hardscrabble mining company?

Ever since it realised it had a neighbour, Australia’s been washing over Papua New Guinea in waves – colonial officials, crooks, businessmen, drifters, aid workers, preachers, economists – waxing and waning, succeeding and failing. Leaving bits and pieces along the way.

“You need to progress too darlin’.”

“You need to follow the Lord Jesus. Look where he came from. The stable. He progressed to become perfect. God almighty.”

The hardscrabble minerals company vanished. I sipped my coffee, and started thinking grumpily about the problem of evil.

He kept on. Blending advice on education and getting out of the village with scripture. Exhorting and exulting, his voice bouncing up and down, up and down, in agitated waves.

“Well, when the Lord likes what you are doing, He will exalt you, and that is when you will get what you want. Later this afternoon, you go and read Matthew…”.

Chapter and verse. He knew the bible. Yet he didn’t sound like the expat ministers I’d met in Melanesia. They didn’t dress like geologists. Their god was never in such a hurry. Nor quite so personal.

“I know you like the village life darlin’. But you need to progress.”

The voice at the other end of the line was tiring, boring, explaining why it had to go and do something else now.  

All that energy. But Papua New Guinea’s been frustrating Australian energy for years. Absorbing those waves. Changing, but never in intended ways.

Or perhaps it had nothing to do with nation states. Families have complicated enough geographies of their own.

“Alright darlin’. Well remember to read the bible later like I told you.”

He hung up. Stood up. And strode out of the cafe. Tears tracing their way down his skinny, stubbly cheeks.