Down On The Jetty

"Are you catching anything?" I asked a fisherman.  He gave a beaming smile. "  I caught a decent squid!" he said proudly.  "I put it down there while I sorted out my line and one of those bloody big birds came down and took it away!"  That's pacific gulls for you: silver gulls on steroids.  He didn't seem too unhappy about the whole affair, and settled himself in for another afternoon of feeding the fish/birds catching himself some fish.

No-one gets up early in South Australia.  Even the fishermen are scarce on the ground before 1000.

 

Wallaroo's jetty, built in 1869, doesn't see a fraction of the trade which it enjoyed back when sea transport was the most reliable and quickest way to get anywhere on the Yorke or Eyre Peninsulas. The jetty's website proudly declared that it was South Australia's 'leading fishing jetty', a claim which I suspected would be hotly contested by every jetty dotted along the extensive South Australian coastline.

"Catching anything?" I asked a crabber.  She snorted and threw a little blue swimmer over the side.  "Nothing worth the trouble!"

The fishermen may see the jetty as their personal preserve, but it still serves a commercial purpose as an export point for the wheat and grains grown on the Yorke Peninsula. Out on Wallaroo's outskirts trucks rumble in and out and mountain ranges of grain sprout seemingly overnight. 

 

Despite the mounting stockpiles, the actual traffic of bulk carrier ships has been desultory at best.  In four weeks in Wallaroo only one bulk carrier has dawdled in to the jetty, lingered for several days while (presumably) loading, and taken its time about wandering back out to sea.  Since Roger arrived he hasn't seen one at all, despite having the binoculars at the ready should any shipping come along.

No hurry here.

The jetty was starting to show its age: the sturdy side fence gave a disconcerting wobble when I leaned on it, and closer inspection revealed that it was firmly bolted to... not much at all, really.  On the southern side of the jetty, the tie points for ships were useful for framing fancy photos and that was all they had been used for for quite some time.

No ships here, just views of the Viterra silos.

The beams underfoot sagged and buckled without warning and I made sure to walk where the cross beams were, on the premise that a false sense of security was better than none at all.  Pigeons rustled and cooed underneath the jetty deck, and I even spied a pigeon egg tucked under the beams.

This is an egg belonging to irresponsible pigeon parents.

 Having survived an expedition to the end of the jetty, we retired for nourishment to the Shores eatery, which occupied a premium spot at the land end of the jetty with a grand view out over the swimming enclosure.  Out in the enclosure two men in full wet suits, weighted belts, and snorkels splashed around in waist deep water whilst giving obscure hand signals to a man in a business-like boat.  With one accord everyone at the Shores Eatery rearranged their seating to watch the show, and lively debate broke out regarding what and why the wet suit men were there.  Periodically the boat, attached by rope to something under the water, revved its two large engines to full throttle and attempted to pull the something out.  Wet suit men made hand signals, water foamed, the rope twanged taut, and in the midst of it all a grandma and her two grandchildren paddled sedately out to the swimming pontoon, from where they had a grand stand view.

Is it sunken treasure? A body? The entrance to a subterranean cavern, secret base of an unlikely superhero? Could it be as mundane as some old marine plank of wood now threatening to put splinters into the foot of an unwary swimmer?

 

Speculation raged in The Shores eatery.  Everyone sipped their cups of tea as slowly as they possibly could, in order to justify their position at the tables in the shade.

 

Sadly no pot of tea is bottomless, and we left reluctantly, all our questions unanswered. The wet suit men still faffed around under the waist-deep water; the boat still revved and roared and stirred up the sandy bottom; whatever was on the bottom stayed stubbornly where it was; and grandma and the kids lost interest and swam/paddled back to shore.

After all that excitement there was not much else to do but ride our bikes back home where we could sit in comfort on the verandah and keep an eye on the swimming enclosure via binoculars. Unfortunately the binoculars were not powerful enough to be useful and therefore the question of what was in the bottom of the swimming enclosure, and if it ever got removed,will never be answered. 

Sorry about that.

Just to finish off, here's a cormorant below the jetty for your viewing pleasure.